When Arthur Briggs arrived in Europe as a member of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra in 1919, he was just twenty years of age. For the rest of his life he worked on the "Old Continent" with but one single trip back to the United States in 1930. Admired for his technical ability and clear tone, he recorded extensively and influenced generations of European jazz musicians. Although he had no firsthand experience in American jazz, he managed to keep abreast with developments in the States through records he obtained in stores in every country he visited: "I had most of Fletcher Henderson's records and the Wolverines at that time and Frankie Trumbauer" (Goddard 1979, 287).1 [End Page 93]

Arthur Briggs himself has always been vague, even contradictory about the place and date of his birth. On more than one occasion he claimed to be a United States citizen: "I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the 10th of April 1901. My parents were from Grenada, Mississippi."2

In actual fact he was born in St. George's on the Caribbean island of Grenada on April 9, 1899, the youngest of ten children of a father from St. George's and a mother from Barbados. According to the passenger list of the British and Burmese Steam Navigation's liner SS Maraval, James Arthur Briggs, musician, eighteen years and six months old, arrived from Grenada in New York on November 22, 1917. He gave his address as the home of his mother, Louisa Briggs, on Green Street, St. George's, Grenada. She had paid for the travel, and stated that he was going to stay with his sister, Mrs. Inez [End Page 94] Hall, in New York City. According to the immigration authorities, Briggs was a West Indian and traveled on a British passport. Briggs also declared that he had not been in the States before.

Briggs's sister Inez, a seamstress, had arrived with her twenty-five-year-old sister Olive, a domestic servant, on June 6, 1913, aboard the SS Maracas from St. George's to New York. On arrival they gave their father's name as James Briggs and stated that they were bound for a friend, Thomas Hall, whom the nearly-nineteen-year-old Inez was to marry the same year. On August 1, 1917, Edith Inez Hall arrived in New York from Grenada aboard the SS Mayaro and stated that she was twenty-four years of age and on her way to rejoin her husband Thomas, and that she had previously resided in New York from 1913 to 1916.3

Upon his arrival in the United States in November 1917 Arthur Briggs stated that he followed the occupation of "musician." Perhaps he had undergone some musical training in his hometown of St. George's, training which was available either through the Boy Scouts' drum-and-fife bands, one of the British colonial police bands, the Salvation Army, or private study.

John Chilton's Who's Who of Jazz claims that the legendary trumpeter William "Crickett" Smith (1881-1947)—"New York's Buddy Bolden"—was Briggs's uncle (Chilton 1985, 307). If this were true, Crickett should have been the brother of Briggs's mother Louisa (whose birth name is not known). But according to his 1919 passport application, Smith was born at Emporia, Kansas, on February 8, 1881. His father, French C. Smith, was born at Memphis, Tennessee, and by 1919 was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. There seems to be no relationship between Smith and Briggs, and it is probably safe to assume that this is part of Briggs's construction of his ancestry as an African American. According to Chilton, Pete Briggs (ca. 1900-1970s) was a "distant relative of Arthur Briggs" (Chilton 1985, 46). The tuba and string bass player from Charleston, South Carolina, who became known for his work with Carroll Dickerson, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Noone, Edgar Hayes, Jell Roll Morton, and Herman Autrey, was in fact a cousin of his.

Briggs volunteered that he had lived on Green Street in Charleston. He knew all about the Jenkins Orphanage at Franklin Street and its founder, the Reverend Jenkins (1861-1937), so perhaps Briggs had briefly lived in Charleston around 1917 or 1918; there is no evidence that he ever was a [End Page 95] pupil there (Chilton 1985, 46). All the same he claimed to have received "private tuition from the Orphanage's Brass Teacher, Lt. Eugene Mikell."

Francis Eugene Mikell Sr. (1880-1932) was one of the early music teachers at the orphanage but had left Charleston long before Briggs's possible arrival. He had later attended the New York Conservatory, had taught music at various institutions, had been musical director of the Globe Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida, and for a time led the orchestra at the Pekin Theatre in Chicago. In early May 1917, Mikell signed up with the band of the Fifteenth Infantry Regiment (Colored) of the New York National Guard under the direction of James "Jim" Europe (1881-1919), the famous orchestra leader. In the New York Age of June 28, 1917, he is identified as having assisted Europe in the regimental band's first concert at the Manhattan Casino. With the addition of Gene Mikell, Jim Europe had a widely experienced musician and a first class assistant conductor in his ranks. The regiment was mustered into federal service on July 25, 1917, and drafted into service on August 5, 1917. It trained at Camp Whitman in Poughkeepsie, New York and performed guard duties at various locations in New York state, followed by further training at Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On December 13, 1917, the regiment—now designated the 369th Infantry Regiment—left New York for France where it became legendary for its bravery and earned the nicknames "Hellfighters," "Harlem Hellfighters," and "The Men of Bronze" (Badger 1995).

If Briggs was indeed in Charleston in late November or early December 1917, Mikell was not. Briggs probably stayed in New York, after all, that is where his sister and her family lived; arrangements for him to do so could have been discussed when she visited Briggs and his family in Grenada in July 1917. In New York, Briggs attended the Martin Smith School of Music in Harlem.4 During a concert of the school's orchestra in 1918, Arthur Briggs attracted the notice of composer and orchestra leader Will Marion Cook (1869-1944), who was assistant musical director of the Clef Club, a popular entertainment venue and booking agency for African-American musicians. Cook engaged Briggs for the club's marching band under the direction of Fred Simpson, who worked as first trombonist in the orchestra of Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolics Revues.

Around November or December 1918, Briggs started rehearsals with Cook's New York Syncopated Orchestra, an all-black band billed as "50 Players and Singers—All Star Soloists." Briggs toured East Coast theaters with this orchestra from January 30 until February 28, 1919 (New York Age, February 8, 1919). [End Page 96]

Briggs's first visit to a record studio must have taken place during this period. He stated on one occasion that he had recorded the tunes "Ja-Da" and "Weary Blues" with Wilbur Sweatman for the Okeh label in "early 1919 after the tour with the New York Southern Syncopated Orchestra."5 On another occasion he stated that one tune was "Ja-Da" and the other "Sister Kate." He also said he played second trumpet to Willie Lewis (not the saxophonist who later led bands in Europe) and that the trombonist was Frank Withers.6

Briggs may have confused the exact circumstances some fifty-five years after the event. As of March 1918 Wilbur Sweatman was under contract with the Columbia company. Sweatman recorded "Ja-Da" for Columbia in two sessions; all three takes recorded on January 17, 1919, remain unissued. At the time of a remake session on February 6, 1919, which produced Take 4" (Columbia A-2707), Briggs was still on the road with the New York Syncopated Orchestra. (Russell Smith may have taken the trumpet chair on the issued take.)7 Arthur Briggs thus may be on the unissued takes of which no tests are extant.

It is not altogether impossible for Briggs to have participated in the remake session if either he left the NYSO before the end of the tour or else the tour was terminated earlier than originally scheduled. At any rate, Sweatman never recorded "Weary Blues," nor did he record "Sister Kate." The other title recorded on the first session was "Rainy Blues," also unissued. The other titles emanating from the second session were "Lonesome Road (Intro: Salvation Blues)" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find (Intro: Sweet Child)." Although there is trumpet on all the sides in question, it is not prominent, typical of a young man just starting out professionally. The trumpet on "Rainy Day Blues" plays during collective ensemble passages only and has no distinctive sound of its own. It is almost impossible to say whether one or two trumpets are present.8 But close listening will reveal that all the early 1919 sides and at least two sessions feature two trumpets. Also, there was a William Lewis living in Harlem and listed in the 1929 AFM Local 802 directory.9 Perhaps Briggs played second trumpet on "Rainy Day Blues" (the same session included a rejected "Ja-Da") and possibly on "Kansas City Blues/Slide Kelly Slide"; the identification is made more difficult as the recordings are badly balanced and use confusing arrangements. [End Page 97]

Back in New York, Cook's orchestra temporarily disbanded, awaiting completion of the negotiations between his business manager George William Lattimore, a black lawyer from Brooklyn, and French-born British impresario André Charlot for a forthcoming engagement in London.

In June 1919 the Southern Syncopated Orchestra of thirty-six instrumentalists and singers left the United States. The company sailed in three parties (see Rye 2009). Briggs was a member of the first group that left from Philadelphia aboard the American Line's SS Northland on May 31, 1919, arriving at Liverpool on June 12. Clarinet virtuoso Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) had left his hometown of New Orleans in 1916 and eventually settled in Chicago. There, members of the touring NYSO heard him in February 1919 at a concert with a band which included cornetist Manuel Perez and trombonist George Filhé—both also from New Orleans—and told Will Marion Cook of their "discovery." Reputedly, the clarinetist had been enticed for a weekly wage of sixty dollars. Bechet left the United States with the second group of musicians aboard Cunard's SS Carmania from New York on June 5, arriving at Liverpool on June 14, 1919. The brothers Edward "Fess" Robert (b. 1893) and Jacob "Jake" C. Patrick (b. 1896) had been raised in the Jenkins Orphanage in Charleston. They left New York aboard the White Star Liner SS Lapland on June 22, 1919, arriving at Liverpool on June 29.

The three parties arrived at Liverpool at the height of a series of race riots. On June 4, a black man had been severely beaten by Scandinavian sailors in a pub brawl. The next night, some thirteen black men set upon seven Scandinavians in a public house. Soon the population and the press labeled the black population of Liverpool as the aggressors, as the Liverpool Courier on June 11, 1919, put it:

One of the chief reasons of popular anger behind the present disturbances lies in the fact that the average negro is nearer the animal than is the average white man, and that there are women in Liverpool who have no self respect. There is also the unemployment grievance—the fact that large numbers of demobilised soldiers are unable to find work while the West Indian negroes, brought over to supply a labour shortage during the war, are able to "swank" about in their smart clothing on the proceeds of their industry.

White mobs patrolled the streets of Liverpool on the lookout for blacks to attack. The police advised black people to remain in their homes. Briggs later recalled that his party required a police escort to get from the docks in Liverpool to the train station. Some members of his party claimed to have seen black bodies floating in the Mersey River. Contemporary reports, however, make no mention of any deaths resulting from the riots (Jenkinson 1986, 182-183).

In London, both Briggs and Bechet lodged at a hotel run by Horatio Botacchi [End Page 98] at 1 Grenville Street in the Bloomsbury area, close to Russell Square and the British Museum. Briggs recalled their days in London: "Bechet was a good friend and a fine fellow, but he just couldn't trust himself. He was so impetuous." Bechet referred to Arthur Briggs as "the Kid." Briggs continued: "Despite being older than I was, he asked me to keep an eye on him, because he might get drunk or get in with the wrong crowd. But he was so easily tempted that when the time came nothing on earth would stop him from doing what he wanted to do. . . . Yet we always remained good friends" (Chilton 1987, 40-41).

The SSO arrived in London at the time when a white quintet, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, were presenting their "funny hat" jazz in the city. The ODJB had left New York for Britain in March 1919, arriving at Liverpool on April 1, 1919, for an engagement as an added attraction to Albert de Courville's revue Joy Bells at the Hippodrome in London, beginning on April 7. However, this engagement lasted only one night after the show's star, comedian George Robey, had served the producers an ultimatum: himself or the jazz band. From April 12, 1919, the ODJB played at the Palladium, followed by engagements at Martan's Club in Old Bond Street from April 28, 1919, at Rector's Club in Tottenham Court Road in June, and at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, the "largest and most luxurious dance palace in Europe," from October 18, 1919.10

After a series of rehearsals, the SSO opened at the Philharmonic Hall, 95 Great Portland Street, a short walk from Oxford Street, on July 4, 1919. The word "jazz" did not appear in the program. The repertoire, played in a semi-symphonic style, included popular ballads and novelty pieces, works by black composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Will Marion Cook's own compositions, and a few instrumental features, notably Jim Europe's "That Moaning Trombone" for John Forrester and Sidney Bechet's show piece "Characteristic Blues." In Briggs's recollection, Bechet was the only real improviser in the orchestra—and the only one who could not read music. As he recalled it: "We had various players who could embellish melodies and play variations in the symphonic style, and we also had musicians who could re-interpret a melody with Ragtime phrasing, but Bechet could and did play pure Jazz and Blues." (Chilton, 1987, 37-38).

Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969), known for his authoritative interpretations of the works of twentieth-century French composers and founder of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, Switzerland in 1918, reviewed one of the orchestra's concerts in the October 19, 1919, issue of the periodical Revue Romande—often cited as the first serious jazz review [End Page 99] in Europe. Ansermet found that "the first thing that strikes one about the Southern Syncopated Orchestra is the astonishing perfection, the superb taste and the fervor of its playing." He also talked at length about Sidney Bechet's performance, which apparently had impressed him most of all.

The London engagement continued until December 6, 1919, with a few outside concerts during the long run. The Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) invited the orchestra to perform at a garden party for members of the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace on the afternoon of August 9, 1919, to celebrate the June 28 peace treaty. Bechet suggested in his autobiography that this was a Royal Command Performance, but it was a garden party (Bechet 1960, 140). The Daily Telegraph wrote that the SSO entertained about a thousand guests in a kind of amphitheater formed by the bed of a drained out lake in the palace gardens. From contemporary reports one may conclude that the full orchestra participated in the concert and that some of the singers presented traditional songs, Will Marion Cook being the accompanist. A "Nigger Jazz Band," composed of William [sic] Briggs (cornet), Sidney Bechet (clarinet), William [sic] Forrester (trombone), Lawrence Morris (bandoline), and Robert Young (drums) was also featured. On the first anniversary of the Armistice a Victory Ball was held at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on November 11, 1919, where the full SSO played for dancing.

By this time Cook had left the orchestra in a huff and returned to New York from Le Havre aboard the SS La Savoie on November 1, 1919. Despite the favorable reviews, the SSO attracted little attention and the concerts were poorly attended. The SSO enjoyed no financial success, and tensions had developed between its two managers. The business manager, George Lattimore, wanted to break it up in smaller units which he could sell individually to clubs and restaurants, whereas the musical manager, Will Marion Cook, wanted to save the orchestra as a whole. Lattimore offered the leadership of the orchestra to Edmund Thornton Jenkins (1894-1926), a son of the founder of the Charleston Orphanage, then a Ross Scholar at the Royal Academy of Music, London. Jenkins, however, declined, and Lattimore replaced Cook with the orchestra's bandmaster, Egbert Thompson, as conductor for the remainder of the contract.

At the end of the engagement at the Philharmonic Hall, the reduced SSO featured for a week, from December 8, 1919, as part of the variety bill at the Coliseum Theatre, after which the London run was finished. In its issue of December 9, 1919, The [London] Times reviewed the orchestra's performance: "It is an entertainment which all would feel better for seeing and hearing . . . the great point in their favour is that at a bound they can bring us back to the darkies' folk songs and melodies what will live long after jazz and ragtime have enjoyed their spell of popularity. The harmony of some of their concerted numbers is a joy." [End Page 100]

At the time, Arthur Briggs was staying in London with Edmund Jenkins to further his musical education (Green 1982, 81). He is not listed among the personnel that left London for a tour of Scotland and northern England. In March or April 1919 Edmund Jenkins had organized the "Coterie of Friends," a social club of his black friends. He arranged for Briggs to participate in a concert of works by the black English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) and of his own composition Folk Rhapsody at Wigmore Hall, London, on Sunday, December 7, 1919, which he conducted. Besides Briggs, the fifty-four-piece orchestra included Frank Withers (1880-1952), who had come with Louis Mitchell's Jazz Kings to Europe in 1919, as one of the three trombonists; flutist Bertin Depestre "Flusky" Salnave from Haiti (1895-1987), who had come to Paris in 1913 to study at the Conservatoire de Musique and had joined the SSO in Europe; and Puerto Rican double bass player Santos (Santita) Rivera (born 1898 or 1899) from the SSO. Briggs remembered the concert later: "I can never forget this wonderful memory, although I was scared to death."11

Jenkins also introduced Arthur Briggs to John Solomon (1856-1953), a distinguished trumpet instructor at the Royal College of Music and a founding member of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1904, then living at 98 Loughborough Park in Brixton, South London. Said Briggs: "I ended up taking two lessons a week for my technique. He taught me how to study and how to produce my tone without forcing it. I studied with him for two years. The first year I went almost twice a week. Then I went once a week, then once a month. . . . I'll never forget it as long as I live because I realize that the facility and all the other things I learned with him and above all not to fight the instrument were invaluable" (Goddard 1979, 283).

During the first few months of 1920, Briggs worked in London, eventually in the band at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, with clarinetist John Russell, trombonist Jake Patrick from Charleston, pianist George Ruthland Clapham (1888-1949) from St. Kitts in the West Indies, and African-American drummer George "Bobo" Hines, all from the ranks of the former SSO.

Around September or October 1920, Briggs joined English pianist Teddie Garratt's Five Jazzing Devils for an engagement at the Mauriske Hall of the new Bristol Hotel in Kristiania, three years hence to be renamed Oslo. The engagement should have started in October 1920 but was delayed until January 25, 1921, over problems with the necessary work permits. According to the files of the Norwegian Central Passport Office,12 the band consisted of Arthur Briggs, Jake Patrick, and Bobo Hines, as well as French saxophonist Roger Jean-Paul Clinton and pianist-leader Teddie Garratt, the only white [End Page 101] musician in the group, who wore sun glasses as a kind of disguise. Alfred Charles "Teddie" Garratt was born in Far Cotton, Northampton, in 1896, but in 1906 emigrated with his mother and brother to Canada, where his father had lived since 1903. The press reported that the musicians were as "black as coal," but little commentary was offered on the Devils' music, although one paper wrote of their "hellish disharmony" and made a note of "Mr. Bobo" and the effect of his drumming on the women, who were apparently fascinated by the range of noises he produced. The engagement ended on March 27, 1921, when Canadian banjo player Jack Harris and his Premier Syncopated Five, a white band from the Embassy Club in London, took over at the Bristol, joined by pianist Teddie Garratt, who had stayed on. This engagement lasted until April 23, 1921. In 1922 Garratt emigrated to South Africa where he ran a piano school, later called the Teddie Garratt School of Syncopation, which according to a promotional leaflet had branches in Johannesburg, London, and Sydney.

Briggs's sojourns during the next six months are not known. Perhaps he "returned briefly to the U.S.A. in 1921, playing with Leslie Howard's Orchestra, then returned to Europe" (Pernet 1979).13 However, there is no evidence of such a visit in the Ellis Island records of incoming passengers. Also the records of arrivals via border crossing from Canada show no trace of Arthur Briggs. A careful search of British incoming passenger lists has also failed to reveal his return from this supposed trip. However, this does not prove that the visit did not take place. The relevant page of the records may be missing or there may have been a contemporary failure in documentation.

Around October 1921, Briggs linked up with Mope Desmond's Five Musical Dragons at Murray's Club in London. Ernest "Mope" Desmond (1895-1922), born Caleb "Cab" Jonas Quaye, came to London from Accra, capital of the British Gold Coast (now Ghana) with the intent to study law but switched to music instead. During an engagement of his Five Musical Dragons at London's Rector's Club in 1921, Sidney Bechet was one the band's members. In November 1921, the Five Musical Dragons were engaged at Murray's Club—in one report they were referred to as "Murray's Black Dragoons Orchestra"—with an ensemble consisting of Arthur Briggs (trumpet), Roger Jean-Paul Clinton (clarinet), Mope Desmond (piano, vocals), Lawrence B. Morris (banjo), and Bobo Hines (drums). The Dragons folded after Desmond was killed on January 27, 1922, in a freak accident during the train journey from Euston Station to Birmingham for a gig at the Wolverhampton Rugby Union Football Club. En route, a [End Page 102] footboard had broken off the tender and smashed through the window of the front coach, killing Mope Desmond. Briggs and Hines, who were in the same compartment remained uninjured; the two other band members, Clinton and Morris, had left Euston Station on an earlier train. A London weekly journal reported that the funeral at Highgate cemetery took place on February 3, 1922, and was attended by "the remaining members of the band—Messrs. G. Bobo Hines, L. Morris, A. Brigge [sic] and Gean [sic] Paul" ("Mr. Caleb Quaye's Funeral" 1922).

During the next few weeks, in February and March 1922, Briggs may have worked at the Grafton Galleries on Grafton Street in Westminster. Unfortunately this upper-class venue never advertised, and thus the names of the bands engaged and the personnel involved remain unknown. Briggs also may have subbed occasionally for English trumpeter Harry Smith (born 1884) in the band led by West Indian pianist George Clapham (1888-1949) at the Embassy Club in Old Bond Street. Besides Smith or Briggs and Clapham, the lineup included Jake Patrick, who had replaced Englishman Frank Kendall (trombone; b. 1885), Sidney Bechet (clarinet, soprano sax) who had replaced Englishman Arthur A. Burgoyne (clarinet; b. 1872), Bertin Salnave (alto sax), and the American Arthur Howard Williams (drums, dance interludes; b. 1872).

As of April 20, 1922, Arthur Briggs joined Le Pollards Jazz Band, led by Hughes Pollard (1892-1926), a drummer from Chicago, at Le Perroquet de Paris in Brussels.14 The Perroquet was the ballroom of the Théâtre de l'Alhambra, Boulevard Emile Jacquemain. The band played for dancing at the Perroquet, and occasionally—Pollard in particular—joined the show of French actress-singer Mistinguett (b. Jeanne-Marie Bourgeois; 1875-1956) at the Alhambra. Besides Briggs and Pollard the band included African Americans Jake Patrick, who by now had earned the nickname "Trombonesky," and Texas-born Roscoe Burnett (alto sax, clarinet; 1891-1971), as well as a pianist known only as "Gabriel." The Belgian lawyer, author, and jazz fan Robert Goffin (1898-1984) referred to Gabriel, who was white, as an Italian, while Briggs described him as a Spaniard.15 On banjo was one "Dunlap." [End Page 103]

Goffin was deeply impressed by the music he heard. He described Pollard:

The greatest drummer of the heroic age. He already possessed that wonderful supple sobriety which only Chick Webb was later to equal. Strangely enough, Pollard was the first and only one to use four-to-the-beat rhythm on the bass drum. With him was Arthur Briggs, the first Negro to use the trumpet instead of the cornet. Briggs was the very backbone of transatlantic jazz. Possessing an amazing technique, an exciting feeling for hot music, and a characteristic swing (long before the swing era began). Briggs was one of those great American pioneers, who taught jazz to all of Europe.

Briggs gave lessons to Goffin: "It was he who explained hot or, as we then called it, New Orleans music to us." According to Goffin, the repertoire included "Stumbling," "Sweetheart," "Young Man's Fancy," "Montmartre Rose," "Red Head Gal," "Dapper Dan," and "Sunny Jack." The engagement at the Perroquet ended on July 3, 1922.

For the 1922 summer season, from early July until the end of August, "L'Orchestre Pollard—Le Célèbre Jass-Band" moved to Ostend on the Belgian coast for an engagement at Chez Pan in the building of the Koninklijke Schouwburg, at the corner of Vlaanderenstraat and Van Iseghemlaan. On July 27, 1922, the Pollard band played at a Grand Fête de l'Or at the Splendid in Ostend.

During this summer in Ostend, both the drummer-leader and Jake Patrick fell victim to violence. Pollard had a drunken encounter with a pimp which left him with a facial scar for the rest of his short life, while Patrick ran into trouble in a cabaret over the question of payment for champagne which he claimed he had not ordered. Patrick was assaulted by the club's manager and severely beaten. Later Briggs recalled that when he found Patrick at the police station he was almost dead and that he died of his injuries about six months later in the American Hospital in Paris (Goodard 1979, 62). On this count Briggs's memory must have failed him—Jacob Patrick was still alive in March 1924 when he applied for a passport for an engagement of eight months in Madrid with the orchestra of Michel Padreano. Back in New York, Jacob Patrick was a member of the New Orleans Creole Jazz Band which Sidney Bechet had organized in the summer of 1925 to play at his Club Basha—a basement club at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 145th Street (Chilton 1987, 72). From Ostend the Pollard band returned to Brussels to accompany La Revue Sans Gêne at the Alhambra from September 5 until October 5, 1922.

At the end of this engagement, Briggs joined the Creole Five of Belgian drummer Gabriel "Gaby" Malaël, an African from the Congo, for a residency at the Regina in Liège from October 14, 1922. Goffin described the Regina as [End Page 104] a "provincial taverne" with entertainment on three floors, including a bar on the fifth floor, where local jazz pianist Jean Pâques (1902-1974) started his professional career. Gaby's Creole Five consisted of Arthur Briggs (trumpet, soprano sax, violin), Bertin Salnave (alto sax, clarinet), Sidney "Kid" (a British pianist whose last name is not known), Greeley Franklin Willis (also known variously as Freeley Franklin, Hilton Willis, and Hilton Wiles) from Barbados on banjo, and Gaby Malaël (drums). In Liège, the Creole Five played as an attraction at Le Forum, a cinema-music hall in rue du Pont d'Avroy. When Malaël returned to Brussels to look after his agency business from his rue Van Artevelde office, Arthur Briggs became the band's leader. Drummer Malaël was replaced by Ludovic "Lud" Germain, who later became known as a saxophonist, and perhaps also by Lazare Florius Notte, a drummer from Martinique (1906-1957). During the winter 1922-1923, American banjoist Albert "Al" Smith replaced Willis.

Early in 1923, Briggs organized his own band for an engagement at the Savoy Hotel, Boulevard de Waterloo, Brussels, replacing an unidentified American band, possibly Louis Mitchell's Jazz Kings. On its menus the Savoy referred to itself as "the Savoy—Grill Room and American Bar." Besides Briggs, the "U.S.A. Savoy's Syncops Band" included Bertin Salnave (alto sax, clarinet), Sidney "Kid" (last name unknown) on piano and accordion, Al Smith, the only African American in this combination (banjo, vocals), and Lud Germain or Albert Refurt, a Frenchman of African descent from Guadeloupe (drums, dance interludes). Robert Goffin—then studying law at Brussels University—remembered his impressions in Aux Frontières du Jazz (Goffin 1932): "Soon Arthur Briggs had the Savoy's revolving door turn very well indeed. But many times we had to stand outside, elbows on the window sill, listening enraptured to the rhythms and syncopations he certainly was the first to let us hear."

The following summer, the Briggs band played in Ostend, probably at the Casino-Kursaal. At the time, the Excellos Five, a Belgian band, featured at the nearby Chez Pan. During this engagement, Hungarian Lajos "Louis" Bobula (d. 1944) replaced the unidentified British pianist whose work permit had expired. Later, Bobula became known as an accordionist. Salnave also mentioned to French researcher Bertrand Demeusy an engagement at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, which cannot be traced; this may have been a concert in aid of the Belgian Congo.16 For the winter 1923-1924, the Briggs band returned to the Savoy, Brussels, where the young Belgian pianist Egide van Gils replaced Bobula. [End Page 105]

Egide van Gils (1905-1986) had started his musical career in 1923 with the orchestra of Philipp Maniet followed by an engagement with Louis Voorhammen, where he linked up with Arthur Briggs. The members of that band included: Arthur Briggs (trumpet, soprano sax, violin), Bertin Salnave (alto sax, clarinet), Egide van Gils (piano), Al Smith (banjo, vocals), Albert Refurt (drums, dance interludes). At the end of this engagement, in mid-1924, Briggs temporarily disbanded and went to Paris to join the International Five of African-American pianist Palmer Jones (1888-1928). This band included trombonist Earl Granstaff (1894-1928), banjoist-vocalist Opal Cooper (1889-1974), and drummer-vocalist Harvey White (b. 1896). At the Seymore Cabaret on rue de Mogador, the International Five provided the music for the revue Midnight Shuffle Along, presented by Palmer Jones and Louis Douglas (1889-1939). The revue featured dancer Douglas, his wife Marion Cook (b. 1900), and Marion's mother Abbie Mitchell (1884-1960) (Lotz 1997, 311-313). Abbie Mitchell had been the wife of composer and orchestra leader Will Marion Cook from 1899 until 1906, when they were divorced. The Chicago Defender of August 2, 1924, quoting the Paris edition of the Tribune, described the revue as "the first appearance of a real all-Colored midnight show in Paris." Others in the cast were Elmer Certain, Tony Mitchell, Florence Jones, Mabel White, and singer/dancer Sonny Jones.

In Paris, Briggs reorganized his band for engagements at Le Perroquet, a club above the Casino de Paris, in rue de Clichy, and at the Palais Washington. Beginning around August 15, 1924, Briggs was back in Ostend, maybe opening at the Chez Pan, followed by an engagement at the Casino-Kursaal under the management of Edmond Sayag, until September 15. Briggs fronted his own band which included his old friends Bertin Salnave (alto sax, clarinet), Egide van Gils (piano), and Albert Refurt (drums, dance interludes), as well as Trinidadian Alston "Al" Hughes (1895-1956) who had replaced Albert Smith on banjo. On tenor saxophone and violin Briggs added Mario Scanavino (1903-1962), a Frenchman who, after 1933, assumed Italian citizenship.

From September 16, 1924, "Les Noirs Savoye's [sic] Orchestre—Briggs la fameuse trompette Jazz" played L'Abbaye,17 19 Porte de Namur, Brussels. The engagement was originally scheduled to last until December 5, 1924, but was extended until the end of January 1925. Subsequently, going by press reports, the band may have played in Namur, Belgium, where Belgian René Bassaert (trombone, string bass) may have been a member of the band.18 [End Page 106]

From May 1 until the end of June 1925, the "Nigger Jazz-Band Arthur Briggs mit dem Savoy-Orchester aus dem Palais Washington, Paris" appeared for two months at Max Glasel's Weihburg-Bar at Weihburggasse 10-12 in the center of Vienna.19 In continental Europe at that time, the use of the word "nigger" in entertainment did not have the deliberately racist connotation it has today (and has always had in the United States). Briggs, who was very race conscious, would certainly have objected. The press described the group as "Three Negroes and one Mulatto."

Austrian trumpeter Fred Küssling told researcher Klaus Schulz that Briggs used to cover his right hand with a cloth in order to hide his finger technique from other trumpeters. Saxophonist Heinrich Blaser, another Austrian musician, recalled that sometimes a Hungarian violinist by the name Radic or Radicz had joined the Briggs band at the Weihburg-Bar (Schulz 2000). In 1925 future English composer and arranger Spike Hughes [End Page 107]

(1908-1987) studied classical music in Vienna. In his autobiography Opening Bars, he recalled having been influenced by Briggs:

I discovered a new jazz band, a group of coloured musicians led by an American Negro trumpet player called Arthur Briggs. The band played in one of the smarter night clubs, and I became as regular a patron as I was at the Opera; indeed, I went quite happily on to the Weihburg Bar after listening to Mozart and Verdi and suffered no noticeable aesthetic shock from the sudden change of surroundings and musical standards.

It was Arthur Briggs's band which had the doubtful distinction of performing my first experiment in popular dance music. . . . The form was there, the instrumental writing was effective, but there wasn't a tune in a carload. I produced on an average one new "blues" every week, copied the parts out myself and was as mystified by the result as Arthur Briggs was.

Hughes also mentioned that "while Briggs's band was certainly all-coloured, it was by no means all-American Negro, for in addition to the flute player from Haiti, the drummer had been Senegalese and one of the saxophone players had come from the Belgian Congo" (Hughes 1946, 227-228).

During the engagement, the Briggs band participated in the production of the Austrian silent film, Das Spielzeug von Paris (in English, Red Heels; in French, Célimène, la poupée de Paris), which was released on October 16, 1925. One of two still photographs shows the "U.S.A. Savoy Syncops Band" with Briggs, Salnave, Scanavino, van Gils, Hughes, and "Bobo" Hines. The film features French actress Lili Damita, born Liliane Carré (1904-1994), in her first leading role as dancer; Damita's future husband, Swedish actor Eric Barclay, born Erik Altberg (1894-1938), as a British bohemian; as well as Hans Moser (1880-1964). The film was directed by Hungarian Mihály Kertész (1888-1962). The film director and his star married in 1925, but the marriage lasted only a year. In 1926, Kertész emigrated to the United States, where he assumed the name Michael Curtiz and became known for the cult film Casablanca (1942).

1925-08-05. Mr. and Mrs. Virag, violinist from Vienna, with members of the Briggs orchestra at Ostende. Die Stunde, p. 10. Courtesy of Konrad Nowakowski.

[End Page 110]

By July 1925 Briggs had been replaced at the Weihburg by Ralph Day, from the Negresco.20 A photo signed by all members of the band and dedicated "To our friend René—Oostende: August 22, 1925," points to an engagement at this coastal resort during the 1925 summer; "René" is probably Belgian trombonist René Bassaert.

Briggs and his band were re-engaged to open at the Weihburg-Bar on Saturday September 12, 1925, to play daily for afternoon teas, and from 9:45 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. Once again they were announced as a "Nigger Jazz-Band." Nonetheless, a photo portrait reproduced in a popular evening paper shows the six gentlemen in formal black tie attire. The caption notes that—very unusual for a night club—"the audience listens to the band as if they were attending a concert performance" and that, "although everyone seems to play something different, the rhythm of the dance remains cohesive."21

Briggs alternated with various local groups ("Kapellen"): a trio led by Oskar Neuhaus, a Hungarian band led by Oskar Virag, and an ensemble led by Ralph Erwin. The engagement lasted until May 3, 1926, long enough for the black band members to become well known in Vienna, both among locals and among visitors. Banjoist Al Hughes was remembered as a "Schwammerlbrocker," i.e. "a mushroom picker," friendly jargon for somebody regarded as a penny pincher. The Chocolate Kiddies revue with Sam Wooding and his orchestra performed at Vienna's Raimund Theater during the second half of November 1925. They repeatedly went to see Arthur Briggs after hours.22 [End Page 111] Sixty years later Wooding's clarinetist Garvin Bushell still had vivid memories of Briggs: "Vienna was where I first saw and heard Arthur Briggs. What a beautiful trumpet player! He was in an orchestra with some Austrians, some French, and a couple of Senegalese. His trumpet made ours sound like beginners" (Bushell 1987, 188; 1988, 62).

At the end of the engagement, Salnave returned to France while Refurt left for his Caribbean home. Briggs sent a note to African-American trombonist Earl Granstaff in Budapest inviting him to join his band at Vienna and asking him to suggest a drummer who could replace Refurt. Granstaff accepted the offer and brought Hungarian drummer Jenö "Chappy" Orlay Obendorfer (1905-1973). Both had been members of the band led by Vilmos "Villi" Pataky at the Parisienne Grill in Budapest early in 1926, where they also featured as a "Black & White" dance act.

Earl Granstaff (1894-1928), from Grand Rapids, Michigan, had toured from 1913 with the band of the (Carl) Hagenbeck-(Ben) Wallace Circus under the direction of cornetist Perry George Lowery (1869-1942), to whom Scott Joplin dedicated his ragtime "A Breeze From Alabama" (1902), then with Horace Eubanks, the obscure clarinetist on some of Jelly Roll Morton's

recordings. During the First World War, Granstaff served under James "Tim" Brymn in France with the seventy-piece 350th Field Artillery Band, called the "Black Devils" and "the Overseas Jazz Sensation," until he transferred to the 807th Pioneer Infantry Band under Will Vodery, then with Elmer Chambers on cornet and Sam Wooding on tenor horn. After the war he returned with the regiment to the United States. In May 1923, Granstaff came back to Europe as a member of Vodery's Plantation Orchestra accompanying the revue "Dover Street To Dixie" starring Florence Mills. The revue closed on September 1, 1923, and the orchestra and members of the cast left Southampton for New York on September 6, 1923. In the spring of 1924, Granstaff returned to Europe and settled in Paris. For a time, he worked in Berlin as a member of the American Alex Hyde's orchestra (June-July 1925) and probably worked with the German Eric Borchard band (autumn 1925).23 The New York Amsterdam News reported that Eddie [sic] Granstaff, [End Page 113] "a fine trombone player," had died in the south of France ("Notes from London" 1929).

The original band played the final evening at the Weihburg. After only one rehearsal the following day, the reorganized band left Vienna by train for Istanbul on August 9, 1926.24 Its new engagement in this Turkish city was at the Maxim, a nightclub owned by George Thomas, an African American, who had lived in Russia up to the Revolution, leaving in 1918. When this club suddenly closed its doors, the Briggs band continued at the Jardin Taxim, the summer club of the Petit Champs on the banks of the Bosporus, in the suburb of Pera, where it accompanied a revue which included the dance duo Alaska and Robovska and African-American dancer Harry Fleming with a white female partner (Lotz and Bergmeier 2007). The band consisted of Arthur Briggs (trumpet), Earl Granstaff (trombone), Mario

Scanavino (alto sax, tenor sax, violin), Alston Hughes, whom Chappy Orlay in his autobiography refers to as "Dickens" (banjo, tenor sax), Egide van Gils (piano), and Chappy Orlay (drums). A report in the German language newspaper Türkische Post of July 20, 1926 refers to a concert of "A. Brigs" [sic] and his jazz band, with songs and Negro dances at the Taxim Garden: "We had a command performance to Ankara by the President, Gamal [sic] Atatürk Pasha. During our performance thirteen of the most prominent politicians of the opposition party were hanged on the market place while we entertained the President's party." The Los Angeles Examiner of August 1, 1926, published an article headed "Kemal Promises More Hangings of Political Antagonists in Turkey."25

From the Bosporus the band returned aboard the SS Constantinople to Marseille and by train to Paris. Orlay mentioned that they arrived in the capital at a time when Blackbirds of 1926 played at the Ambassadeurs; the show opened in London on September 11, 1926. In Paris both Granstaff and Hughes left (Alston Hughes died on April 1, 1956, in Paris; Briggs attended his funeral). They were replaced by French trombonist Jean Naudin (b. 1902) and American banjoist Mike Engelen from Boston, Massachusetts. Jean Naudin knew Mario Scanavino from an engagement with the Hot Boys Band of Italian saxophonist Tony Rumolino in Paris around 1924 or 1925. Mike Engelen grew up in Britain and by September 1926 he was living in Antwerp, Belgium. Another new addition was French alto saxophonist-clarinetist Georges Jacquemont "Brown" (1897-1981), who may also have been a member of the Rumolino band.

Beginning on October 1, 1926, Arthur Briggs and his Savoy Syncopators Orchestra started a long residency at the Barberina, Palais des Westens, Berlin's leading dance-restaurant, on Hardenbergstrasse. The personnel included Arthur Briggs (trumpet), Jean Naudin (trombone), Mario Scanavino (tenor sax, violin), Georges Jacquemont (alto sax, clarinet), Egide van Gils (piano), Mike Engelen (banjo), Chappy Orlay (drums). Chappy Orlay lists Heinz Müller (trombone) and Charlie Vidal (alto sax). French trumpeter Julien Porret (1896-1979), however, having just finished an engagement with Ernö Rapée in Berlin, distinctly recalled having met fellow countryman Naudin as a member of the Briggs band in Berlin in 1926. German discographer Horst H. Lange lists American guitarist Harold M. Kirchstein among the recording personnel (Lange 1978, 162-164), but this is denied by Kirchstein himself.26

During this engagement, the Briggs band recorded two titles for the Vox-Schallplatten- und Sprechmaschinen AG. A brass bass is audible; Lange [End Page 115] suggests that one Hans Holdt was added for the recordings only. Around January-February 1927, two titles were recorded: "It Made You Happy" and "Bugle Call Rag." The latter was remade early in March. The first title is introduced by Arthur Briggs: "How do you do everybody? This is Arthur Briggs and his band playing for you. The name of this tune is 'It Made You Happy When You Made Me Cry.'" On this side an unidentified vocalist is present whom Lange identifies as "Bob Astor."

Bob Astor, also Astern-Astor, was born as Heinz Alfred Stern in Idar-Oberstein, Germany, in 1908. He had studied piano and theory in Stuttgart from 1925 to 1927 but started his business career as a bank clerk, singing on the side, before moving into music full-time. Being of Jewish descent, Stern was not allowed to perform after the Nazis came to power; in 1935 he left for Prague, then Luxembourg and Switzerland. In 1938, he emigrated to Ecuador, where he owned a restaurant and entertained the small German community with his songs. Stern returned to Germany in 1949, initially settling in the German Democratic Republic, before moving to West Germany in 1952. A year later he left for Switzerland and retired to Bern.

The second Vox title is introduced: "Hello everybody, this is Arthur Briggs and his band playing. Get ready to shake your hips to the 'Bugle Call Rag!' Are you ready boys?" to which the band shouts an affirmative "Yes!" The Vox release was first advertised in the Phonographische Zeitschrift on May 1, 1927.27 Both titles are musically great performances and a marvelous recording debut for Briggs and his solo trumpet, especially since Briggs had no first-hand experience in American jazz; he had been away from home since 1919! In 1930 the Kristall record company mistakenly reissued "Bugle Call Rag" as "Die alte Mühle" ("The Old Mill").28

In Berlin on April 1, 1927, Dagobert Tichauer, owner of the Barberina, opened his new club, Valencia, with the Imperial Jazz Band led by Italian tenor saxophonist Sesto Carlini. Later, Carlini recalled that the Briggs band, including Scanavino and Jacquemont, worked at the "sister" club. At the time, Briggs became a close friend of Sesto Carlini and the Italian musicians Aldo Capperucci (trumpet) and Felice Barboni (alto sax, clarinet).29 At the end of the Barberina contract, late in April 1927, both Scanavino and Orlay [End Page 116] joined the band which German violinist Robert Gaden was rehearsing for an engagement at the Regina Palast Hotel, Munich, from May 5, 1927.

Briggs's group disbanded, perhaps on account of his health problems. There had been rumors that he stayed on in Berlin as an independent freelance soloist (e.g. Lange 1966, 38-39). This was first substantiated by American banjoist Mike Danzi: "Arthur Briggs was a Black trumpet player from Paris. While in Berlin he did some sessions with Dajos Béla at Lindström in 1928."30 Danzi was for decades closely involved in the German hot dance scene and was on some of the sessions (Danzi 1986). This was later confirmed by Briggs in interviews, in which he also pointed out his presence on several sides with Marek Weber's society dance band.31 At that time, there was no need for German record companies to note personnel in their recording ledgers. All musicians were paid cash; royalty agreements were exceptional. Individuals can therefore only be identified through the recollections of the participants and aural evidence. Briggs's unmistakable hot trumpet can be heard to good advantage on a few Vox titles by the Gabriel Formiggini Orchestra ("Heut ist die Käte ete-petete," and "Wieso ist der Walter so klug für sein Alter" (May-July 1927).

With Dajos Béla (1897-1978) Briggs recorded several sides for the Odeon, Beka, and Parlophon labels, including "One O'Clock Baby" (June 1927) and the "Super-Charleston: Hi-Diddle-Diddle" (August 1927). On the latter, Briggs's solo work stands out nicely in a good musical arrangement, although the ending is too abrupt. Among the titles he recorded with Marek Weber (1888-1964) for Electrola (HMV) is the Charleston "Crazy Words" (July 1927), really a wonderful musical performance; the band shines. Briggs possibly participated in most if not all Dajos Béla recordings during the period April-September 1927. Briggs further stated that he recorded about fifty, mostly straight, titles with the Marek Weber orchestra.32 Lange also lists the trumpeter for recordings by Billy Bartholomew, and René Dumont (Lange 1978, 49, 105, 293), which Briggs has since denied and which is not supported by aural evidence.33 There is no denying that the presence of Briggs enormously improved the sound of the dance bands noted, none of which were known for their jazz or hot dance qualities.

Briggs can also be identified as the lead trumpeter on a promotional record for the Bottina shoe company, Hamburg. A speaker praises Bottina shoes as "gut—schick—billig" [good—elegant—inexpensive] which is followed by an instrumental version of the specially composed "Bottina-Shimmy" (music by Harry Hauptmann, text by Artur Lokesch). [End Page 117]

Harry Hauptmann, born in Berlin on July 7, 1882, wrote the operetta Die Dame mit dem Monokel (1921) and became known for his cabaret songs: Claire Waldoff sang his "Mitten in der Nacht" (1921/22) and Trude Hesterberg his "Heut' geht ich zu Kempinski" (1930) in the Ballsaal-Revue at the Haus Vaterland. The composer was blacklisted in publications sponsored by the Nazi party, such as Judentum und Musik (1938) and Lexikon der Juden in der Musik (1940). He emigrated to Shanghai in 1938.

On the reverse side of the promotional record a male voice praises Bottina shoes followed by the song "Am Mai-Kussa" by pianist-composer Lena Stein-Schneider (1874-1958). She was born Helene Meyerstein, married Schneider, and was in the advertising business.

Around July or August 1927, Briggs reorganized and a band under his direction worked at the Libelle on Jägerstrasse, Berlin. From mid-August 1927 the band moved to the fashionable Eden Hotel on Kurfürstenstrasse, at the corner of Budapester Strasse, Berlin. Both Scanavino and Orlay had rejoined the band after the end of the engagement with Gaden in Munich. Briggs's band included the following musicians: Briggs (trumpet), German Heinz Müller (trombone) replacing Jean Naudin, Frenchman Charlie Vidal (alto sax, clarinet) replacing Georges Jacquemont, Mario Scanavino, another Frenchman (tenor sax, violin), Belgian Egide van Gils (piano), American Mike Engelen (banjo), and Hungarian Chappy Orlay (drums). For recording purposes Hans Holdt (brass bass) was added to this international ensemble which, save for its leader, was all white.

Between late August and early September 1927, the band recorded a number of sides for the Clausophon label, owned by the Clemens Claus AG in Thalheim, a small town (8,100 inhabitants in 1925) in the Erzgebirge part of Saxony, not far from the Czech border. The company had been founded in 1926 by Albert Claus, the owner of a local paper mill. Clausophon's technical manager, August Kybarth (1878-1945), was a well-known expert in the record industry. He had worked in Berlin for Nigrolit, a company specialized in manufacturing compounds for gramophone disc records. With two German business partners he had founded Metropol-Record in Russia in 1910—the first and largest pressing plant in Aprelevka—about forty kilometers outside of Moscow along the railway to Kiev.

Initially, the Clausophon records were made in Thalheim in a reconstructed barn, but soon the company's recording activity was moved to Berlin where the records were made, presumably under contract for the [End Page 118] Usiba Sprechmaschinen-Gesellschaft, a trading house specializing in exports to Poland. The Usiba label carries the legend "produced exclusively by 'Venus Records.'" The Berlin-based Venus-Grand-Record company claimed in advertisements to have been founded in 1904 and was owned by one H. Temple. In 1927 the company went into liquidation, and its assets may have been taken over by the newly established Clausophon company. The owner of Venus Records continued as partner of the Sirena/Syrena company in Warsaw. The titles were issued on the company's Clausophon label, and for export to Poland on Usiba, labeled as by the Barberina Brighs Orkiestra, the Savoy Syncops Orkiestra, and the Pavillon Jazz Orkiestra. Some sides were also issued on the Polish Sirena/Syrena label as by the Tanz Orchester Henry Gold, as well as on Sigurd and V.d.M. (Volksverband der Musik-freunde, a subscription label). The titles were not Arthur Briggs's choice but stock arrangements selected by the company owners. When asked which recording he considered his best, Briggs surprisingly answered: "Paris" ("Ça . . . c'est Paris!"), a onestep from the first Clausophon session. He probably chose it because it had sold best and thus made a lasting impression.34

Around late August or early September 1927, the Briggs band made another promotional record for the traditional Dresden-based shoe polish "Eg-Gü." An unidentifed German sings to the popular melody "Heut' ist die Käte ete-petete":

The otherwise unknown Hellaphon label was not available to the general public. The only known copy of this particular disc bears a red rubber stamp reading "Unverkäuflich!" (not for sale) and the handwritten remark "Probeplatte" (test record).35

Around September, 1927, the Briggs band may have briefly appeared in Hamburg. In September and October of that year, "Arthur Briggs and his Savoy Syncop's Orchestra" (and variations of this name) featured at the Café am Zoo on Berlin's Budapester Strasse, a complex of several dance restaurants, including the Café am Zoo, the Palais am Zoo, and the Grill am Zoo, which had opened early in 1927. This orchestra recorded a total of forty-six titles for the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, Germany's largest recording company, of which forty-five were released on the company's main label. Most sides were also issued on the Polydor label for [End Page 119] export purposes (after the lost war, the rights to the famous Grammophon dog trademark were denied outside Germany) and some on pressings for the Australian market. The discs are considered to be among the best jazz recorded during the Weimar Republic.36 Twenty-two sides feature singer Al Bowlly who likely also played rhythm guitar on some of the numbers. Bowlly used to hang around at the Café am Zoo but was not a regular member of the Briggs band, as independently recalled by Edgar Adeler and Don Barrigo.37

Albert (Alick) "Al" Bowlly (1899-1941) was born to Greek and Lebanese parents in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo, Mozambique). He grew up in South Africa, where he joined pianist Edgar Adeler for a tour of the Far East. During the tour Bowlly quit and stayed in the East while Adeler proceeded to Europe and joined the orchestra of Robert Gaden in Munich in May 1927. Early in June 1927, Bowlly followed his mentor to Munich and also joined the Gaden orchestra (which then included Briggs's former sidemen Mario Scanavino and Chappy Orlay). At the end of the Munich contract, Gaden disbanded, and the musicians went to Berlin. It was in Berlin that Al Bowlly made his first important recordings. In June 1928 his fellow countryman Len Fillis suggested he should leave Berlin for London, where he was to become an extremely popular "crooner," still widely remembered today.

Max Harrison noted that

even at this early stage, Briggs's technique was mature, and although on some pieces, such as Among my souvenirs, he merely decorates the melody, he more often syncopates it violently, as in Ain't she sweet, or skitters across it obliquely, making only passing allusions, as on Since I found you . . . his best passages occur . . . when he spins an entirely independent line of his own, as on Do the black bottom and Ain't she sweet . . . the reed players gyrate with extreme liveliness in their solos, even if these are hit-or-miss. The rough treatment accorded Song of the wanderer provides good examples.

Polydor began pressing in Australia from imported masters in 1927. The seven Briggs records issued there were advertised in the March 1, 1928 issue of The Australian Musical News (Grossman 1980). "The Far Away Bells" (matrix 733bd) on Polydor (Australia) 21097 was only issued in Australia.

In early December 1927, the Briggs band played at the Abbaye de Thélème at 1 Place Pigalle in Paris. For the rest of the winter season (December 16, [End Page 120] 1927 until January 1928) the band was booked at the Mont Blanc Palace Hotel in Chamonix, the ski resort in the French Alps. Briggs then returned to Vienna for a concert of jazz adaptations of opera melodies and popular songs at the Konzertsaal on February 18, 1928. However, the concert had been cancelled at short notice as noted in a German theatrical paper:

The same day, Briggs had found an engagement at the Weihburg Bar, Vienna, his third at this venue, from February 18 until April 18, 1928.39 A photograph of the band taken on location and published in Orlay's autobiography (Orlay 1943) was identified by Briggs: Briggs (trumpet), Henri Vidal (alto sax, clarinet), Mario Scanavino (tenor sax, violin), Egide van Gils (piano), Mike Engelen, the only American in the band (guitar), and Chappy Orlay (drums).40 What had happened? The Briggs Band had arrived in Vienna at a time when Ernst Krenek's so-called jazz-opera Jonny spielt auf had played at the State Opera (since December 31, 1927) and had created a scandal. "Unsere Staatsoper ist einer frechen jüdisch-negerischen Besudelung zum Opfer gefallen," read a call for a protest demonstration on January 13, 1928.

While Briggs was engaged at the Weihburg Bar, Josephine Baker arrived in Vienna for an appearance at the Ronacher-Theater on March 1, 1928. She was greeted with polemics anticipating those of the National Socialists. In the Wiener Allgemeinen Zeitung a cartoon appeared with the subtitle: "Ab Samstag den 18. Februar spielt Briggs für Baker und Jonny auf," with Josephine Baker as a white dancer and Arthur Briggs—not Jonny—on saxophone. Against this background Josephine Baker fled Vienna within a day or two without having appeared on stage, and Briggs had to scale down his ambitions and present his standard repertoire of jazz and popular melodies at the Weihburg Bar instead. In April 1928 the band was back in Berlin, probably at the Valencia on Kantstrasse in Charlottenburg (at the time African-American violinist Leon Abbey's "10-Neger-Jazz-Symphoniker" were engaged at the Europa-Pavillon).

Mrs. van Gils, widow of the pianist Egide van Gils, told Belgian researcher Robert Pernet that the Briggs band participated in the production of a film [End Page 121]

starring Clara Bow. However, the "flapper" is not known to have visited Berlin, and it is assumed that Mrs. van Gils confused Clara Bow with Louise Brooks (1906-1985), star of Georg Wilhelm Pabst's Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box/Lulu, 1929), which was produced in Berlin by Nero-Film AG. Brooks came to Berlin on October 14, 1928, shooting started on October 17, and she left Berlin again on November 23, 1928.

On April 14, 1928, German comedian Joseph Plaut (1898-1981) recorded two jazz parodies. Side one of Odeon O-4051, although titled "Johnny spielt auf," is actually a parody on "Oh, Miss Hannah," and there is no musical relationship with Krenek's 1927 jazz opera of that name. On side one, Briggs's trumpet leads a jazz band into the first bars of the tune, then stops: "I say: Look here, if we don't get more money, we are going on strike." Plaut (in his role of theater manager) replies in German that in this case he will do the entire show alone, and sings to piano accompaniment, then imitates a saxophone and trumpet until Briggs gives in, picks up his trumpet, and the band finishes the tune. The reverse is a sketch by Plaut, again in the role of a provincial Saxon club owner who wants to hire a jazz band but dislikes the music. Both he and Briggs (and the record buying public) must have enjoyed themselves.

Those parodies were apparently close to real life. Briggs was realistic about the situation with regard to jazz in Germany: [End Page 124]

Of course the work we did was very commercial. We had a pretty hard time trying to slip the jazz stuff in. Especially in Germany, because the Germans were way behind where jazz was concerned. Most of their stuff was in march time—"eins, zwei, eins, zwei." We had to play commercial things for them except occasionally we were able to slip in "Bugle Call Rag" or something a bit like that. That would have been around 1928.

Beginning in May 1928 the Briggs band extensively toured Germany. Egide van Gils had stayed behind in Berlin where he opened the prestigious Delphi Palast with the Delphians Jazzband, led by Englishman Billy Bartholomew (Bergmeier and Lotz 1985, 22). It seems that the Briggs band was in Hamburg, Breslau (today Wroclaw, Poland), and Leipzig before turning west again to play at Stuttgart, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Nürnberg, and at the Café Kiefer in Saarbrücken. "Die Jazzkapelle Briggs" ended its German tour with an engagement at the Café Sacher Wien in Kaiserstrasse, Frankfurt/Main, which lasted until October 31, 1928. From this venue they ended the evening programs with live broadcasts on Sunday, October 14, and again the following Sunday, October 21.41 A week later they left for Switzerland. [End Page 126]

"Arthur Briggs and his Savoy Syncops Orchestra—Der beste Jazz-Trom-peter Amerikas" played the entire month of November at the Dancing Esplanade in Zürich, where they replaced the Fantasio Band directed by Ladis Illaraz.42 An added attraction were Greenlee's Chocolade Bon-Bons—the girls were announced as the "solo dancers of the former Chocolate Kiddies in their Negro dances," and the local press applauded both.43

While the band was still in Zürich, Scanavino returned to Berlin and was replaced by Jean Girardbelle (b. 1905) on alto sax. Girardbelle, a Swiss, had previously been at the Esplanade with the Caprino Band.44 According to Chappy Orlay, the Briggs band was replaced by a Hungarian gipsy orchestra ("Horvàth Sandor der ungarische Geigerkönig mit seiner Magnatenkapelle"), then moved to Paris and opened at the Abbaye de Thélème where he worked opposite Francisco Canaro's tango orchestra (and later that of Brodman-Alfaro), as of December 1, 1928. Orlay remembers the personnel as follows (his spellings): Arthur Briggs (first trumpet), Louis de Vries (second trumpet), Flemming (trombone), Don Polo (first sax), "Big Boy" (tenor sax), Gerardbill (third sax), Euged van Gils (piano), Mike Angelein (banjo), Hans Bassmann (bass), and Chappy Orlay (drums) (Orlay 1943, 101).

Dutchman Louis de Vries had just completed an engagement with Danish saxophonist Kai Ewans in Paris. "Hans Bassmann" might be his brother Jack de Vries. However, Herb Flemming could not have been with the band at this time, as he had returned to New York, along with other members of the Sam Wooding orchestra, at the end of August 1927. He would not return to Europe until May 1929. Furthermore, Danny Polo is believed to [End Page 127] have led a band at the Abbaye at about the same time. Frank "Big Boy" Goudie grew up in New Orleans; he had lived in France from 1925.

In December 1928 and early January 1929, the Briggs band played a return engagement of six weeks at the Mont Blanc Palace Hotel in Chamonix. In January 1929, the band was in Frankfurt for another engagement at the Café Sacher Wien; the first advertisement, "Nochmaliges Gastspiel Arthur Briggs mit seinem Savoy Syncops Orchestra," was placed in the January 1, 1929, issue of the Frankfurter Zeitung (Stadtblatt).45 The band was favorably reviewed by a theatrical journal. February 1929 saw Briggs back in Paris, at the 440 Club as well as at the El Garron on rue Fontaine, Paris's strongest redoubt of tango music. Several non-French musicians, including Girardbelle, Mike Engelen, and Chappy Orlay, were unable to obtain work permits and had to leave Briggs, and France for that matter. (They joined the revue orchestra which accompanied Mistinguett for a tour of Europe.)

Around March 1929 "Arthur Briggs and his Black Boys—L'orchestre de Noirs Américains" recorded several titles for the elusive Azuréphone label—some sides were also released on Hébertot and Discolor. The exact personnel is still open to debate, but may have included the following (Brard and Nevers 1991): Arthur Briggs (trumpet), Belgian René Bassaert (trombone), Frenchmen George Jacquemont (alto sax, clarinet) and Charlie Vidal (clarinet, alto sax), Italian Francis Giulieri (tenor sax), Stéphane Mougin, another Frenchman (piano), the two African Americans Maceo B. Jefferson (banjo, guitar, vocal) and John Warren (brass bass), as well as Jean Taylor(drums)—this may have been Billy Taylor, a black Englishman from Manchester—and Jamaican singer and songwriter Rudy Bayfield Evans, who is also known to have played alto saxophone. Thus, one half of the "Black Boys" were white.

In July the Briggs band appeared at the Abbaye in Paris.46 Late in October 1929, the "Tanzmusikkapelle Arthur Briggs" returned for a last time to Germany, for a week's engagement at the Café Hambitzer at Eschersheimer Tor in Frankfurt am Main. There was some animosity about the presence of foreign bands during the months of September and October in Germany, but Briggs was also defended by local musicians.47 If advertisements are to be believed, "thousands of requests" persuaded management to hold [End Page 128] the band over into November.48 That the orchestra was well received is evidenced by two live broadcasts transmitted from the Café, on November 7 and 11, 1929.49 After this brief excursion to Germany, Briggs disbanded and returned to France. Around December 18 or 19, 1929, African-American lyricist, singer and band leader Noble Sissle (1889-1975) passed through Paris en route from Britain to the south of France. Sissle's trumpeters Demas Dean and Clifton "Pike" Davis had returned to the States at the end of a British tour (they left Southampton on December 17), and Sissle was happy to hire Briggs in Paris the following day.50

From December 21, 1929 until June 1930, the Sissle orchestra played at the Café de Paris in Monte Carlo. The line-up was: Arthur Briggs (trumpet), James Reevy (trombone), William "Buster" Bailey (clarinet, soprano sax, alto sax), Rudy Jackson (clarinet, alto sax), the Puerto Rican Ramón "Moncho" [End Page 129] Usera (clarinet, tenor sax), Robert "Juice" Wilson (violin), Lloyd Pinckney (piano), Henry "Bass" Edwards (bass), and Jack Carter (drums). During this engagement the band also appeared at the Sporting Club, Monte Carlo, and performed a concert in Paris in April 1930.51 In June and August 1930 the Sissle orchestra worked at the Ambassadeurs, Paris, with an enlarged personnel which now included Tommy Ladnier (second trumpet), Frank "Big Boy" Goudie (tenor sax, clarinet), Antonio Spaulding (second piano), and Frank Ethridge (banjo, violin).

Arthur Briggs may have been engaged in some freelance work during this time, but the trumpet heard on recordings made by "James Boucher et son Jazz" for Pathé in Paris around September is not his but Harry Cooper's, perhaps with Briggs playing second trumpet.

From November 17 until December 13, 1930, the Sissle orchestra, now ten members, was engaged at Ciro's Club, London, in Orange Street off Haymarket.52 The members of the band were Arthur Briggs (first trumpet), Tommy Ladnier (second trumpet), William Burns (trombone), Puerto Rican Rafael "Ralph" Duchesne (first sax), Ramón Usera (second sax), Lloyd Pinckney (piano), Frank Ethridge (banjo, violin), Edward Coles, brother of Nat "King" Cole (brass bass), Jack Carter (drums), and Bert Marshall, an Englishman of Ghanaian ancestry (vocals). Duchesne (1890-1986) had been with Noble Sissle in France during the Great War and probably joined the Sissle orchestra in 1930 on the recommendation of his fellow countryman Ramón Usera (1904-1972).

"Noble Sissle & His Band from Ciro's Club and of Radio & Gramophone Fame" were featured in a British Pathétone film clip in which Sissle sings Walter Donaldson's "Little White Lies." When he finished the lyrics, and after an instrumental break, drummer Jack Carter leapt up to sing a rapid rendition of "Happy Feet" at the back of the band; towards the close, tuba player Edward Coles rushed up front to tap-dance a furious demonstration of "Happy Feet," true to the word. From Ciro's the BBC transmitted four live broadcasts, on November 11 and 15, and again on December 4 and 11, 1930. On Thursday, December 11, 1930, Noble Sissle and His Sizzling Syncopators recorded four sides for Columbia. In an interview with French record collector Daniel Guerin, Briggs was bitter that all solos on this session were taken by Tommy Ladnier. The engagement at Ciro's ended on [End Page 130] Saturday, December 13, 1930. The following Tuesday, December 16, 1930, the Sissle orchestra, including Arthur Briggs, returned aboard the CGT liner SS Paris from Plymouth to the States. They arrived in New York City on December 22.

Only two days later, on December 24, Noble Sissle and his Paris Ambassadeurs Orchestra opened at Harlem's Rockland Palace, the old Manhattan Casino at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue.53 Sidney Bechet, who had arrived in New York aboard the German liner SS Bremen from Bremen on the same day as the Sissle orchestra, joined them. Sissle subsequently played a series of dates around Chicago, returned to New York for a residency at Pierre's Club beginning on January 27, 1931, and left again for a tour of the southern states. On April 21, 1931, Sissle visited the Brunswick studios to record three sides:

"Basement Blues," the first of these, has some excellent instrumental interludes. . . . Arthur Briggs plays two emotive 12-bar blues choruses, sounding unflurried and assured, then Bechet enters, on soprano saxophone, and soars up to even greater heights of feelings, creating a chorus that radiates intensity. Subsequently Tommy Ladnier, not sounding the least bit overawed, blows a beautifully constructed 12-bar solo.

Shortly after this record date Sissle returned to France. Noble Sissle's Plantation Orchestra, as it was now called, arrived at Le Havre on May 1, 1931. Briggs was fed up living on the road with Sissle, recalling:

The touring was tough . . . it was real tough. That's why I decided to stay in France. I reckoned much more of that and my life would be considerably shortened. We'd play sometimes from nine in the evening until five in the morning. Then there'd be eight, ten, sometimes twelve hours in the bus to the next gig. That's why when Sissle came back to France I decided not to go back with him.

On May 7, 1931, the orchestra opened at the Ambassadeurs in Paris. Apparently, the engagement came to a premature end when Sissle, who had resisted a demand by the French Ministry of Labor that half of the musicians in his band be French citizens, returned to the States. He was replaced by Lud Gluskin. Bechet left France for Berlin while Briggs stayed in Paris. According to Briggs, the booking office of Lartigue and Fisher, knowing that he had left Sissle, proposed that Briggs re-form his orchestra for a job at the Monte Carlo Casino. In fact, this did not happen until March 1933. Meanwhile Briggs joined pianist Freddy Johnson for a June 1931 engagement at [End Page 131] the summer club of African-American singer-entertainer Ada "Bricktop" Smith on the French Riviera. Freddy Johnson had left Sam Wooding in December 1929 and settled in Paris. Here, he worked at Bricktop's on Rue Pigalle initially as solo pianist until he formed a band to play society music for the club's exclusive clientele. During the summer of 1931, the Johnson band consisted of Arthur Briggs (trumpet), Herb Flemming (trombone), Bricktop's husband Peter DuCongé from New Orleans (alto sax, clarinet), Big Boy Goudie (tenor sax), Freddy Johnson (piano), Juan Fernandez from Martinique (bass), and Billy Taylor (drums).

Upon returning to Paris from the Riviera, Briggs (the press phonetically spelled him "Brix" on occasion) organized his Plantation Orchestra for an engagement at the Embassy Club on Champs Elysées until early in 1932. During this engagement, on December 12, 1931, Briggs was featured as a member of "Bricktop et sa Troupe" at a "Grande Matinée de Gala" which Harry Pilcer, the American ballroom dancer, had organized at the Casino de Paris. Briggs (trumpet), Nelson Kincaid (clarinet, alto and tenor sax), Ralph Duchesne (alto sax, clarinet), Freddy Johnson (piano), Joe Caulk (bass), and Bert Marshall (drums), accompanied vocalists Louis Cole, Mabel Mercer, and the Close Harmony Boys.54 At the end of his contract Briggs was replaced by Vala et ses Gars.

In January 1932, the Briggs orchestra played at Ciro's, the restaurant of the Hôtel Daunou, rue Daunou. Briggs then disbanded and freelanced in Paris. On May 4 he augmented the Lud Gluskin orchestra at a Pathé recording session: on "Home—Rumba Cubaine," Briggs plays a trumpet solo and obbligato; on "Oh Mon'ah!" he takes eight bars. A month later, on June 9, Pathé cut "Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho" to which the Kentucky Singers55 contribute the vocals; and Briggs one bar of solo trumpet. Around December 20, 1932 Briggs was on an audition session organized by Maceo Jefferson for the Salabert label. The one title produced by this black band, "Isn't It Romantic," was never released.

When two enthusiastic jazz fans—the well-off Hughes Panassié (1912-1974) and Charles Delaunay (1911-1988), the son of painter Robert Delaunay and his artist-wife Sonia Delaunay—formed the "Hot Club de France" in December 1932, Arthur Briggs became one of its founding members. The founders [End Page 132] had set out to reveal the real meaning of jazz to a public which until then believed that Paul Whiteman and Jack Hylton were the leading exponents of this kind of music. The first two members were Panassié and Delaunay; Freddy Johnson and Arthur Briggs were members three and four. (A year later Panassié published Le Jazz Hot, the first serious study of the music. Delaunay published his Hot Discography in 1936—the first effort to document all jazz records. Both works set standards for future researchers.)56

Early in 1933, the Briggs band, including Ralph Duchesne (alto sax, clarinet) and Benny Peyton (drums), worked at the Casino in Monte Carlo. During the engagement Briggs fell ill for about two weeks and put Peyton in charge. Theodore "Teddy" Brock did the trumpet work. When Briggs came back, he had "a little difficulty with some of the boys in the group," as he put it (Goddard 1979, 286). In fact, Peyton had accepted an engagement for "his" band at the Florida Cabaret in Paris, and Briggs found himself without a band. It may have been during this difficult time that Briggs played an otherwise unconfirmed gig in Brussels at La Quinzaine de Gala au Broadway.

At this time, around March 1933, Arthur Briggs linked up with Freddy Johnson again, which was the beginning of a close partnership and friendship. Briggs recalled that "we worked together like clockwork. We just felt it—we didn't have to say a word" (Goddard 1979, 286). On May 17, 1933, the Johnson-Briggs orchestra provided the music on the occasion of the first concert of the Hot Club de France at the club's premises, 14 rue Chaptal. In the band were Briggs (trumpet), Peter DuCongé (clarinet, alto sax), Big Boy Goudie (tenor sax, clarinet, trumpet), Freddy Johnson (piano), Maceo Jefferson (guitar), Juan Fernandez (bass), and Billy Taylor (drums).

On June 13, 1933, Arthur Briggs and His Hot Boys recorded four titles for Brunswick, two duets ("Grabbin' Blues" and "Japanese Sandman") and two vocal accompaniments for Louis Cole ("Nobody's Sweetheart" and "I Got Rhythm"). On June 30, 1933, the Johnson-Briggs orchestra accompanied singer Alberta Hunter (1895-1984) at a concert at the Salle Chopin, Paris, which the Hot Club had organized. On July 4, 1933, the orchestra and singer Louis Cole gave a concert at the Poste du Petit Parisien radio station; Sterling Bruce Conaway had replaced Maceo Jefferson on this occasion.

Later that month Briggs was member of the all-black Cuban and American line up of Maceo Jefferson and His Boys when they cut four sides for the Salabert label. The band consisted of Briggs, Harry Cooper (trumpet), Billy Burns (trombone), Peter DuCongé (clarinet, alto sax), Filiberto Rico, Alcide Castellanos (alto sax), Frank "Big Boy" Goudie (tenor sax), Freddy Johnson [End Page 133] (piano), Maceo Jefferson (banjo), Juan Fernandez (bass), and Oliver Tines (drums). On two sides ("Stormy Weather" and "Crying for Love") they were joined by African-American singer Elisabeth Welch on her first recordings in Europe. From her stage debut in 1922 to her final professional appearance in 1996, Elisabeth Welch (1904-2003) was an important figure in the world of popular song. In 1923 she launched the Charleston and throughout the Jazz Age, she was associated with some of the great names of the Harlem Renaissance, including Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Ethel Waters. She settled in England (Bourne 2005).

During the month of July 1933, Briggs and Johnson returned twice more to the recording studios. On July 8, they recorded five sides for Brunswick as "Freddy Johnson, Arthur Briggs and Their All Star Orchestra," which included Briggs, Bobby Jones, Theodore Brock (trumpets), Billy Burns (trombone), Peter DuCongé (clarinet, alto sax), Alcide Castellanos (alto sax), Big Boy Goudie (tenor sax), Freddy Johnson (piano), Sterling Conaway (guitar), Juan Fernandez (bass), and Billy Taylor (drums), plus Louis Cole and Spencer Williams (vocals). Strangely, their homage to the Hot Club de France to which they owed so much, "Hot Club Stomp," is the only title of the session which remains unissued.

According to German discographer Horst H. Lange, movie star Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) was accompanied by Johnson, Briggs, DuCongé, Fernandez, and Taylor on a recording date in Paris on July 19, 1933. Supposedly, the studio formation (members of the Wal-Berg orchestra) which the recording company Polydor had lined up did not satisfy either Peter Kreuder (1905-1981), the composer of "Wo ist der Mann?," nor Dietrich. Instead, they looked for African-American expatriate jazz musicians and engaged the Freddy Johnson men. Judged by the unusual number of reissues of "Wo ist der Mann?," this performance must have been quite successful.

By October 1933, Freddy Johnson had assumed sole leadership of the former Johnson-Briggs orchestra. When bandleader Leon Abbey returned to Paris from a tour of South America, some of his men, Roy Butler and Herb Flemming, joined Freddy Johnson's Harlemites. Butler recalled:

It consisted of some members of Lucky Millinder's band who happened to be in Paris, and trumpeter Arthur Briggs. We made several recordings, including Sweet Georgia Brown, Harlem Bound, and Sweet Madness for Brunswick [on October 14, 1933]. That was arranged by a fellow named Cannetti. . . . An interesting thing about the session was that we had no written arrangements. Each section just got together and worked out their own harmonies and rhythms etc.

Beginning June 1, 1933, the French government had enacted the so-called "ten percent law" to stem an alleged tide of foreign musicians. From then on, a foreign musician had to be part owner of the establishment he was working in. Briggs signed as "part-owner" of a cabaret but, towards the end of 1933, inspectors discovered him in another job. He was issued the customary fifteen-day notice to leave France.

On December 8, 1933, the Hot-Club de France presented a concert featuring Arthur Briggs and pianist Garland Wilson; the titles performed included "Dinah," "Blues in B Flat," "Black and Tan Fantasy," "Chinatown," and "Some of These Days" among others, and finally "Tiger Rag."

Freddy Johnson and his Harlemites left France for the Netherlands where the Dutch announced him as "De sensatie van het saison—Freddy Johnson And Harlemites, including Arthur Briggs, solo-trompetists, een ster Armstrong gelijk."58 He opened at the Tabaris in the Hague on March 1, 1934.

From Holland the musicians returned to Paris. Briggs may have done some freelance work again, but his alleged presence on recordings by the Don Alfredo Marimba Band (French Columbia, March 1934) is unlikely and not supported by aural evidence. In November 1934, Briggs surfaced in a pickup group at the Stage B on Boulevard du Montparnasse, the other musicians being Alix Combelle on clarinet and saxophone, Stéphane Grappelli on piano, virtuoso guitarist Django Reinhardt (1910-1953), and George Marion on drums. On November 30, a concert was given at the Cabane Cubaine, rue Fontaine, in honor of Arthur Briggs.

According to a letter from English jazz historian and journalist Leonard Feather, dated London, November 17, 1934 and published in Melody Maker, "Arthur Briggs, another Parisian Harlemite, doughtily hits his top C's at the Chantilly."

The December 1934 issue of Jazz Tango (no. 51) carried a brief news item: the Orchestra of the Hot Club de France directed by Arthur Briggs, traveled from Paris for just twenty-four hours to play in Zürich at the "Bal des Italiens" on Saturday, December 8. About a thousand guests attended and participants included Reinhardt, Grappelli, and Booker, among others. At the time, the Leon Abbey band featured at the Café Esplanade. Also, some time in December 1934 and January 1935, Briggs fronted his own band for an engagement at the Sihlporte, Zürich. Besides Briggs the band is known to have included Ralph James (alto sax, clarinet), Clé Saddler (tenor sax), and Billy Taylor (drums). The others remain unidentified. Zürich was followed by a tour of Switzerland with engagements in Geneva, Lausanne, and probably other cities.

At the end of the Swiss tour, Briggs disbanded and joined the orchestra [End Page 136] of Cuban guitarist Don Barreto at Le Chantilly night club on rue Fontaine in the Montmartre district of Paris which included, in addition to Briggs, Luis Fuentes (flutes, clarinet, saxophone, claves), Ray Gottlieb (piano), Don Barreto (guitar), Storne (bass), and Sergio Barreto (drums, maracas, bongos). Guitarist Emilio "Don" Barreto was born in Havana in 1909 as one of three musician brothers of whom Marino Barreto (1907-1995) was a pianist and vocalist, and later became known as leader of a Cuban band at the Embassy Club, London. José Isidore Sergio, born in Havana, Cuba, around 1911, was a drummer and vocalist; Justo Barreto (sax, piano) was a cousin.

Emilio Barreto started his musical career as a violinist. At the age of thirteen, he won a prize at the conservatory he was attending; two years later he was a member of Cuba's philharmonic orchestra. In 1925 the family moved to Madrid, and the following year Emilio and his brother Marino went to Paris. At the time, Emilio took up the banjo, and with American drummer Farrel as third man initially worked at the Boeuf-sur-le-Toit. Here the impresarios Sirota and Leonidoff of Chocolate Kiddies fame discovered the brothers and hired them for the orchestra of the Louis Douglas revue Black People. The orchestra was led by Sidney Bechet, and the revue would make Josephine Baker a star. From Paris, Black People was featured in Brussels and Berlin, where Josephine Baker left the ensemble and the revue broke up (Lotz 1997, 321). Back in Paris the Barreto brothers worked at the Palermo, rue Fontaine, and at Bricktop's, rue Pigalle. Under the influence of the local jazz scene, Emilio Barreto switched to guitar. From around March 1932, he led the band at the Melody's Bar in Montmartre playing beguines, at the time a popular slow rumba-style dance music, which made him famous. In May 1932, Emilio Barreto made his first recordings in Paris for Columbia and in May of that year Decca invited him to London.

Briggs may have participated in record sessions with the Cuban band, although this appears to be doubtful. The same can be said of his participation, on February 9, 1935, in a session which produced three issued titles by "Léon Monosson, accompagné par M. Alain Romans du Poste Parisien et son Ensemble" (Columbia). Charles Delauney indicated that the trumpet player on these titles was unknown, whereas the annotation by Olivier Brard and Daniel Nevers (Brard and Nevers 1989, 63) was "prob. Arthur Briggs or Noël Chiboust (tp)"; Paul Vernon names Alex Renard (Vernon 2003, 33).

On February 23, 1935, the tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, one of the giants of jazz, was the star of a concert at the Salle Playel. He was accompanied by a band which included Arthur Briggs and Noël Chiboust (trumpet), Castor McCord (tenor sax), Fletcher Allen and Peter DuCongé (alto sax, clarinet), Django Reinhardt, Sigismond Beck (bass), and Billy Taylor (drums). [End Page 137]

On March 2, 1935, Arthur Briggs augmented the orchestra of French jazz violinist Michel Warlop for a recording date with Coleman Hawkins. Warlop (1911-1947) had been a highly acclaimed child prodigy in the classical music field until he fell in love with jazz and disappointed his sponsors. The records are dominated by Hawkins, leaving little room for solos by the others present: Briggs, Noël Chiboust and Pierre Allier (trumpet), Guy Paquinet (trombone), André Ekyan, Charles Lisée (alto sax), Alix Combelle (tenor sax), Stéphane Grappelli (piano), Django Reinhardt (guitar), Eugène d'Hellemes (bass), and Maurice Chaillou (drums).

On March 21, 1935, a "Gala de l'Université des Annales" concert was given at the Salle Gaveau, featuring Josephine Baker, Arthur Briggs, Willie Lewis, and Bobby Martin.

Five weeks later, on April 11, 1935, the Hot Club de France organized a concert at the École Normale de Musique in rue Cardinet involving Briggs (trumpet); Americans Jerry Blake, real name Jacinto Chabania (clarinet, alto sax) and Big Boy Goudie (tenor sax, clarinet); with Frenchman Roger Chaput on guitar. Around April, Briggs played at the Music Box.59 On June 4, 1935, Arthur Briggs guested with the Willie Lewis orchestra from Chez Florence at the ball of the "Petits Lits Blancs."

In late June, Briggs joined the Quintette of the Hot Club of France for an Ultraphone date which produced "Avalon" and "Smoke Rings." The personnel included two additional trumpets, a trombone, and three guitars, one of which was of course Reinhardt. Briggs returned to Ultraphone in September 1935, with the core of the Hot Club (Stéphane Grappelli, violin and piano, Reinhardt, guitar, Louis Vola, bass) to record four trumpet solos. Sadly, all four titles were rejected, and the masters destroyed.

From September 12, 1935, Arthur Briggs and His Coloured Boys—"dit phenomenale Jazz-Orkest"—(advertisements, Het Vaderland, September 10 and 11, 1935) were reengaged at the Dancing Tabaris, the Hague, doubling for thé-dansants at the Grand Hotel Central (3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.). The nine-piece orchestra consisted of Arthur Briggs and Pedro Lugo (trumpets); José Bandera and Ralph James, a veteran of the Sam Wooding orchestra (alto sax, clarinet), Clé Saddler (tenor sax); Pedro Guevara (piano), Greeley Franklin Willis (guitar), Abelardo Gonzales (bass), and Billy Taylor (drums). The Cubans were from the Barreto orchestra. Willis had worked for Briggs back in 1922.

The winter of 1935-1936 saw Briggs at the Ambassadeurs in Cannes. The Ambassadeurs was frequented by society, and the Paris press noted that the orchestra "from Les Ambassadeurs in Cannes and about to leave [End Page 138] for Switzerland" entertained the guests at a party celebrating the wedding of Mr. Olivier Allard, a banker, to Miss Maggy Ozil at the salons on the Boulevard Exelmans on May 12, 1936. Around June or July 1936 the band played in Zürich, followed by the summer season of 1936 at the Deauville Casino in France (where it replaced Big Boy Goudie and his Band).

Back in Paris, Briggs replaced Bobby Martin, who had returned to the States, in Willie Lewis's Entertainers. According to discographer Brian Rust, Briggs participated in the band's recording sessions for Pathé on October 15 and November 12, 1936, although this is not supported by aural evidence. In a letter dated September 3, 1971, Briggs told Swiss jazz expert Johnny Simmen: "I did quite a few free-lance recordings . . . and one with Lewis for Pathé after Bobby Martin had left the band. Willie phoned me to make this date and a title that I remember is 'On Your Toes.' I was never a member of Willie's band on a regular basis, but we were very close friends right from the Sam Wooding days" (Rust 2002). All trumpet solos on records made on those two sessions by the Willie Lewis orchestra feature Bill Coleman. But in "On Your Toes" it must indeed be Briggs who takes a trumpet solo, [End Page 139] while the obbligato is by Jack Butler. All the other freelance recordings to which Briggs referred remain unidentified.

According to a note in the Chicago Defender of November 21, 1936 (Wiggins 1936), "Briggs' new outfit," including Fletcher Allen (clarinet, alto and tenor sax) and Frank Withers (trombone), had an hour-long broadcast on Poste Parisien on Sunday, November 15, which resulted in the offer to play regularly on Saturday nights, replacing Willie Lewis and his orchestra. However, Briggs had to decline the offer as he was committed to an engagement in Vienna during the remainder of the month followed by a season in Egypt, as of December 1, 1936.

Subsequently, "Arthur Briggs and His American-Cubano Boys," including Fletcher Allen (clarinet, alto and tenor sax) worked in Egypt, at the Hotel Continental in Cairo and in Alexandria, probably at the Monseigneur. In its edition of February 13, 1937, the Melody Maker reported that Briggs had "signed for a winter season at the Continental Cabaret, Cairo, with 9-piece combo."

The French periodical Jazz Hot reported in its December 1937-January 1938 issue that the Briggs band had returned from Egypt to Paris, evidently some time during the first half of October 1937. Briggs apparently disbanded the orchestra and might have rejoined Willie Lewis for a recording session

on October 18, 1937, although he cannot be recognized on the issued titles; all trumpet solos are by Bill Coleman (on "Swing Time" Jack Butler also has six bars). On January 15, 1938, and again on January 29, the Chicago Defender reported that the band had returned from a one-year engagement in Egypt and went into Henri Dajou's Cotton Club at the Place Pigalle in Paris (Wiggins 1938).

During the week of March 21, the band left Paris for an engagement in Stockholm for the entire month of April. According to a note in the periodical Orkester Journalen (May 1938), the band included a second trumpet, clarinet, two saxophones and a rhythm section of piano, bass, and drums; the band accompanied an unidentified French varieté ensemble. Some time in mid-1938, the Briggs band appeared at the Pergola of the Casino in Namur, Belgium. During this engagement, "Arthur Briggs and His Boys" accompanied Coleman Hawkins at a Swing Party which the local Hot Club had organized at the Park Hotel. On December 16, 1938, Arthur Briggs and scores of other musicians, including the Willie Lewis band, the Quintette of the Hot Club of France, and famous accordionist "Gus" Viseur's Music, as well as Valaida Snow, Una Mae Carlisle, and Garland Wilson, participated in "La Grande Nuit du Jazz" at the Coliseum, rue Rochechouart, Paris.

After the outbreak of war, Robert Goffin recalled bumping into Briggs in a café on the rue Pierre Charon on the day of the German offensive against the low countries.60 Just before the occupation of Paris by the Wehrmacht on June 14, 1940, Arthur Briggs, accompanied by Christian Wagner (clarinet), Ray Stokes (piano), Django Reinhardt (guitar), and Tony Rovira (bass), recorded some sides for Charles Delaunay's Swing-label, on February 15, 1940. "Both Melancholy baby and Sometimes I'm happy have fanciful, surefooted, tirelessly mobile trumpet solos," says Max Harrison (Harrison, Fox, and Thacker 1984, 241).

During the war, Arthur Briggs stayed in France. Paris was his adopted home. After the occupation of Paris on June 14, 1940, he was ordered to report to the police to be interned. Subsequently, the order was withdrawn, probably because the Wehrmacht officials had assumed he was American, and the United States had not yet entered the war. Nevertheless, on October [End Page 141]

17, 1940, Briggs was arrested and interned in a camp near Compiègne, eighty kilometers north of Paris. The old barracks, predating the First World War, had served the German army as a prisoner of war camp until the dreaded SS took them over and, using the name "Polizeihaftlager" (police arrest camp), turned them into a concentration camp for political prisoners. Here Briggs found himself in the company of Maceo Jefferson, Juan Fernandez, and other African-American expatriate musicians. In the camp, Fernandez was killed in a bomb blast which was never explained. The British residents of France, including pianist-leader Tom Waltham, were mainly interned in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The "Camp des Internés Britanniques" was located in barracks built in the middle of the nineteenth century. When Waltham heard of Briggs's imprisonment, he petitioned the German authorities to have him transferred to the British camp. The petition was granted, and Briggs was transferred to Saint-Denis, where he became the centre of the camp's musical activities. He also became member of a vocal trio, his partners being Gay Bafunke Martins, born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1894, a member of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra in 1921, and Owen Macauley, a black Briton. A printed program survives of a "Concert Symphonique" (Albeniz, Granados, de Falla, Mozart, Haendel, Franck, Liszt) which was organized and arranged by pianist Hedley Heaton for [End Page 142] November 2, 1942. Tom Waltham directed the sixteen-piece camp orchestra that consisted of Arthur Briggs, Arnold Prager (trumpet), Harold Chouinard, Tony Payne, Leslie Prager (clarinet), Reginald Camilleri (flute), Frank Leboutillier (bassoon), A. B. Freilich, Arthur Owen King, Cecil J. Mackee (violin), Hedley Heaton (piano), Jack Bunyan (cello), Joseph Choouinard (bass), Owen Macauley (drums), and Bernard Kay (tympani).

Briggs recalled:

We did play jazz for ourselves in the rooms, the different rooms, but it was disbanded . . . we couldn't play any jazz, we were not supposed to play jazz in a German camp, you know that. We played right along for each other in our various rooms. But the band that we had, we had a big band that played classics and everything else, we even had a [?] festival and everything else. The Germans came, the German officers, oh yes, they all came. I had a personal congratulations from—I hate to say [?] his name, von St-[Stülpnagel], the commander of Paris. 'Cause they never thought a Negro could play anything but, what did they call it, "monkey music" or something, when he heard us play the

Fifth Symphony and the second strain, the second part of the Fifth Symphony with a very important trumpet entrance, you see, very musical, and very hard to a certain extent, which shows whether you had musical culture or not. You have a double forte, sforzando which enters a triple pianissimo, three pianos, you have a sforzando and three pianos immediate after you hit the note. And at the end of the concert the commander asked the orchestra leader to present me to him, and we, he said, "I congratulate you. I never thought it was possible but I've heard it myself," so I said, "Well, there are lots of things that man doesn't know in life. Es gibt viel Sachen die man nicht kennen selbst." I've forgotten most of my German, but I can read and write it. And he understood and he said?"You're quite right,' he said? I shall never forget this evening." In English he said it. "I shall never forget this evening."61

When the Allies advanced, the German guards opened the gates of the camp on the night of August 24, 1944, and told the prisoners they were free to leave. The next day the Swiss consul arrived. He confirmed that the prisoners were free, and that arrangements were being made for transportation. The same night a German tank shelled the camp; several people were injured but none was killed. In the panic that ensued, Arthur Briggs and a friend escaped, pushing a cart with their meager belongings towards Paris. On September 23, 1944, the Chicago Defender published an account by the British clarinetist, composer, and orchestra leader Rudolph Dunbar from Guyana under the heading "Briggs Trumpet Player, Free After 4 Years in Nazi Camp."62 After a reunion with his wife, Briggs joined his musician friends at the Hot Club de France in a concert to celebrate the liberation. In its Christmas issue The Melody Maker reported: "Since then, the trumpeter has lost no time getting back to work. To-day he is again prominent in Parisian jazz circles, taking a leading part in the direction of the French Hot Club's programmes. . . . Last month, this club staged a large jam session at L'École Normale de Musique, given in honour of Briggs's return to free musical life. The concert drew a huge crowd and was immensely popular."

On April 6, 1945, Arthur Briggs and His Orchestra with unidentified personnel and instrumentation recorded four additional sides for Blue Star of which two were released.

By November 1945, Arthur Briggs was fronting his own band at Beaulieu. Around March 1946, he started a long residency with his band at Chez Florence, 61 rue Blanche, Paris, which lasted until 1951. On Saturday evenings, the band's "Surprise Party" was regularly broadcast by the Poste Parisien radio station. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s he continued to play successful residencies in France, including regular summer seasons at the Casino in Aix-les-Bains. Between 1945 and 1958 he regularly played at the Pavillon d'Armenonville, Bois de Boulogne as "Briggs High Society Band," or "Briggs and His Society Orchestra." Among his sidemen in Paris during the 1950s was Dutch trumpeter Piet Alkema.

In 1950 and again in 1952 Briggs recorded for Pathé at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées as "Arthur Briggs et son Society Dance Orchestra." The personnel is likely to have changed, but might have included, besides Briggs, Charles Lisée (tenor sax, clarinet), André Darbonneville, Claude Rué, André Tibault (alto sax, clarinet), Pierre Dutillet or Figaro Thibaut (piano), André Gerion (guitar), Emnanuel "Nono" Sude (bass), Georges Mandel (accordion, bass), Robert Monmarché (drums), André Delonnerville, and Jean Gruyer (arrangements). "Rag Mop," on which Arthur Briggs sings with interjections by the ensemble, is the title most likely to interest the hot jazz collector.

In 1964 Briggs disbanded his last ensemble, retired from touring, and began teaching saxophone and drums at several schools and cultural centers—initially at Lisieux, some hundred kilometers distant from Paris, later at the Paris suburbs of St. Gratien, Chantilly, and Saint Ouen, until failing eyesight forced him to retire. At Saint-Gratien, on March 14, 1981, his pupils performed at the twentieth anniversary of the cultural center: "The Saint-Gratien Harlemites—formé et animé par Arthur Briggs." Briggs was then eighty-two years of age.

Briggs never got around to writing his memoirs, which he so often shared with all the interviewers whom he met either at his home, at 93 rue Lamarck, or his favourite café, Le Palmier.63

Arthur Briggs died in Chantilly on July 6, 1991, and was laid to rest at the [End Page 145] Montmartre cemetery in Paris. He was survived by his wife Jaqueline64 and their daughter, Barbara (Inez) Pierrat-Briggs a graduate of the Sorbonne in foreign languages.65 Briggs always was very proud of his daughter who, he said, was playing pretty nice classical and variety piano.

In its obituary the New York Times of July 18, 1991, wrote that "Arthur Briggs, an American trumpeter who was one of Paris's most popular jazz musicians between the two world wars, died on Monday in Chantilly, a [End Page 146] suburb of Paris. He was 92 years old. He died of kidney failure, his family said. Mr. Briggs, who was born in Charleston, S.C., went to Europe in 1919 with Sidney Bechet and played with Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra."

Horst P. J. Bergmeier has been a senior business executive in England, South Africa, and The Netherlands. He has published articles in a variety of international magazines such as Der Jazzfreund, Fox auf 78, Storyville, Memory Lane, and Doctor Jazz. With Rainer Lotz, he is the author of Hitler's Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing (Yale University Press, 1998), Live from the Cotton Club (Bear Family Records, 2003), and, with Ejal Eisler of Vorbei, Beyond Recall: Dokumentation jüdischen Musiklebens in Berlin 1933-1938 (Bear Family Records, 2002). The first and last publications were awarded the ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Sound Research.

Rainer E. Lotz, an economist and mechanical engineer by education, has worked as a manager of development banks in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He is a retired civil servant in development aid and a lecturer in political science. He is the compiler of more than fifty LP and CD anthologies of historic recordings and the author of more than two hundred articles in scholarly journals in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Africa. He has almost one hundred monographs to his credit (many in cooperation with Horst P. J. Bergmeier). His current projects include the German National Discography (twenty-two volumes published to date) and Black Europe, the first comprehensive documentation of the sounds and images of black people in Europe before 1927.

Danzi, Michael, as told to Rainer E. Lotz. 1986. American musician in Germany 1924-1939: Memoirs of the jazz, entertainment, and movie world of Berlin during the Weimar Republic and the Nazi era, and in the United States. Schmitten: Ruecker.

Appendix

The discographical layout follows standard procedures. When more than one take was recorded, those takes known to have been issued are underlined. Square brackets indicate editorial comment.1

James Arthur Briggs Discography

In an interview with Dutch researcher Ate van Delden on May 30, 1974, Briggs stated that he had recorded the tunes Ja-Da and Weary Blues with Wilbur Sweatman for the Okeh label in "early 1919 after the tour with the New York Southern Syncopated Orchestra." In an interview with American researcher Warren Plath in 1981 he again said it was with Wilbur [End Page 149] Sweatman, that one tune was Ja-Da and the other Sister Kate. He also said he played second trumpet to Willie Lewis (not the saxophonist who was later a bandleader in Europe) and the trombone was Frank Withers.

Briggs may have confused the exact circumstances some fifty-five years after the event. As of March 1918 Wilbur Sweatman was under contract with the Columbia company. He recorded Ja-Da for Columbia twice: on January 17, 1919, all three takes recorded remain unissued, and again in a remake session on February 6, 1919 which produced the issued fourth take.

Briggs was a member of the New York Syncopated Orchestra which toured East Coast theatres from January 30 until February 28 (New York Age, February 8, 1919).

Sweatman's biographer Mark Berresford has aurally checked the early 1919 sides and is of the opinion that the two sessions in question may have two trumpets playing. Also, there is a William Lewis listed in the 1929 AFM Local 802 directory living in Harlem. Berresford suspects that Briggs is the second trumpet on Rainy Day Blues (the same session includes a rejected Ja-Da), although aurally it is impossible to tell whether one or two trumpets are present.

For the second session on February 5, 1919, which produced the issued take four of Ja-Da, the most recent edition of Brian Rust's jazz discography (2002) lists Briggs. However, at the time Briggs was still touring. A likely candidate for the trumpet chair on this session would be Russell Smith. Briggs might have participated in the remake session, but only if he either left the SSO before the end of the tour, or the tour was terminated earlier than originally scheduled.

At any rate, Sweatman never recorded Weary Blues, nor did he record Sister Kate.

Take 1272-1BB is unconfirmed. Introduction by Briggs as follows: "How do you do everybody? This is Arthur Briggs and his band playing for you. The name of this tune is 'It Made You Happy When You Made Me Cry'"

Vox-8470 was first advertised in the May 1, 1927 issue of Phonographische Zeitschrift.

Master 1273-1BB was originally allocated to Bugle Call Rag. The crossed-out figure 1273-1BB can still be detected engraved in the wax under the labels. Briggs introduces the song: "Hallo everybody, this is Arthur Briggs and his band playing. Get ready to shake your hips to the 'Bugle Call Rag'! Are you ready boys?" The band shouts an affirmative "Yes!".

This session produced three titles. The recording ledgers refer to "Odeon Tanz-Orchester" and the leader is not identified. Aurally this is the Dajos Bela personnel augmented by Briggs, at least on Be 5888 and Be 5889

Briggs plays solo on 1966-BB and 1969-BB. Records were first advertised on October 1927. ca. July-August 1927: Possible sessions with Billy Bartholomew for the Grammophon label, but not supported by aural evidence.

ca. July-September 1927: Briggs freelanced on recording dates with Dajos Béla and Marek Weber, and possibly other orchestras. He may be present on more sessions than shown below, where his presence is confirmed.

The prefix 'T' is sometimes used only in the wax, or only on the label, or not at all. At least one copy of Clausophon 362 shows two matrix numbers for Paris c'est Paris, i.e., T.5662 and 6559. The significance of the latter is not known.

The only known copy of this disc is now at the Jazz Library of Rutgers University. It bears a red rubber stamp "UNVERKÄUFLICH" (i.e. not for sale) and the additional information "Probeplatte" (i.e. test record) in handwriting. The reverse is master H.4640 Parijs, de Stad der Zonden by a still unidentified orchestra.

Hellaphon may have been a special label for publicity and advertising records, possibly associated with the Bu-Scha label of the Bu-Scha Schallplattenvertriebsgesellschaft m.b.H. at Berlin S.42, which in turn was associated with V.d.M., Rensie and the Artiphon labels controlled by Hermann Eisner, the record industry pioneer.

Grammophon 21125, 21126, 21128 were first advertised in the January 1, 1928 issue of Phonographische Zeitschrift. Grammophon 21127 was first advertised in the December 15, 1927 issue of Phonographische Zeitschrift.

It all depends on you (Es liegt in deiner Hand) -1 -vocAB Foxtrot, M+T: Bud G. de Sylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson

Grammophon/Polydor 21124

703 bd

Odle-de-o -1? Foxtrot M: Maurie Rubens/T: Clifford Grey

Grammophon/Polydor 21126

[End Page 163]

Grammophon-21123, 21124 were first advertised in the December 15, 1927 issue of Phonographische Zeitschrift. Grammophon 21126 was first advertised in the January 1, 1928 issue of Phonographische Zeitschrift.

Polydor began pressing in Australia from imported masters in 1927. The Briggs records were advertised in the March 1, 1928 issue of The Australian Musical News. Matrix 733bd on Polydor (Australia) 21097 was only issued in Australia. Reverse of Australian Polydor 21098, although on some copies credited Arthur Briggs' Savoy Syncopators Orchestra, is actually master 625 bd Baby My Baby by Efim Schachmeister's Symphonians.

January 1928: On his way back from France to his next engagement in Vienna, Briggs possibly had a stop-over in Berlin, which would have enabled him to participate in a recording session with John Abriani between January 17 and 20, 1928, as suggested by discographer Horst Lange (Lange 1992, 49-50) and supported by aural evidence, although Briggs himself denied his presence (Briggs to Lotz, April 4, 1978). Briggs could be the trumpet on mx 19831, 19833 or 19840.

About April-September 1928 the Briggs orchestra participated in a film starring one of Paramount's biggest stars, the quintessential "It-Girl" Clara Bow (1905-1965) (Mrs van Gils, widow of pianist Egide van Gils, to Belgian researcher Robert Pernet). The exact details could so far not be verified, nor can any evidence be found that Clara Bow was in Europe at this time.

Master 6758 is actually a parody on Oh, Miss Hannah, and there is no musical relationship with Krenek's "jazz opera" of that name. This title features a dialogue between Arthur Briggs (in English) and Joseph Plaut (in German).

Jamaican singer Rudy Bayfield Evans (1897-1987) had lived in London since 1925. He was not a regular member of the orchestra and added for the recording sessions only. [End Page 167]

The reverse of Discolor 26 is 4747-AB Why Don't You Love Me. Foxtrot. Avec refrain chanté par Evans. The tune played is actually Why Do I Love You, from the musical Show Boat. Adjacent matrices remain untraced.

Although credited to Arthur Briggs and his Black Boys this is most probably a mislabeling for a French band of the time, possibly the Orchestre Reckles (which recorded matrices 4736 up to 4739, 1740 remains untraced.).

Briggs has been reported to be present on a September 1930 recording by James Boucher et son Jazz (Pathé X-8754), which is not supported by aural evidence. The trumpet soloist is Harry Cooper.

Briggs, although present, is not audible. All trumpet solos by Ladnier

Briggs stated: "I did quite a few free-lance recordings with Ray Ventura, Lud Gluskin and one with Willie Lewis for Pathé." [Briggs to Swiss Researcher Johnny Simmen, 03.09.1971, quoted in "Willie Lewis & his Entertainers", Storyville, 115, October-November 1984, 5]. None of the recordings made with Ventura have been identified as yet. On only a few of the recordings he made with Gluskin and Lewis can he be aurally identified, although he may have been present on others. An attempt is made to list the sessions in their entirety for completeness sake. Recording dates are copied from the recording ledgers, courtesy Olivier Brard, and checked against Horst Bergmeier & Rainer E. Lotz, "Lud Gluskin - A Bio Discography", Fox of 78 Sonderpublikation Nr. 1, 1991, which is based on the Gluskin diaries, courtesy Mrs. Gluskin.

Reverse of Grammophon 47002 is by Tatjana Birkigt; 47199 by Lys Gauty; SP-1A by Anna Sten.

Briggs has been suggested as a sideman on recordings by Tomás et ses Merry Boys for Odeon between 1933 and 1949. This is not supported by aural evidence (in March 1933 the trumpet soloists were —Casta and Eddie Ritten).

The presence of Briggs has been suggested for a February 2, 1935 session by German emigrant singer Leon Monosson accompanied by Alain Romans du Poste Parisien et son Ensemble (Columbia DF-1676, DF-1690). This is not supported by aural evidence.

Footnotes

1. The actual transcript is slightly different from the printed version. Goddard's lengthy interviews with Briggs are a valuable source of information, although Briggs repeatedly complained after publication about Goddard's alleged misquoting. In interviews with Rainer E.Lotz, Briggs recalled that "in many cases he used his own imagination" (January 4, 1979) and "by transforming certain of my phrases to inject animosity among my fellow musicians towards me and my story" (February 4, 1980). Transcribing spoken interviews for reproduction in print is a difficult task and slight alterations and adaptations inevitable, though they should not change the meaning.

2. In a 1982 interview with James Lincoln Collier (Jazz Oral History Project of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark, New Jersey), Collier questions Briggs on his birthplace. Collier: "Grenada?" Briggs: "Grenada, Mississippi." Collier: "Is that somewhere in the Delta country, was it?" Briggs: "Yes, it certainly was. I was brought up in Charleston." Collier: "What did your Dad do down there?" Briggs: "He was a sanitary inspector." Collier: "In Charleston?" Briggs: "In Charleston." Panassié (1987, 361), has him born in St. Georges, Canada, on April 9, 1901. An essay in the Roaring Jazz Crooner Chronicle (A. M. 1976), supposedly based on an interview with Briggs by Allard Möller, repeats this, but perhaps Möller copied the information from Panassié (as did several other jazz dictionaries).

3. The authors gratefully acknowledge the research undertaken by Mark Miller and Howard Rye, who checked immigration, shipping line, and census data, as well as Charleston Orphanage files (Rye to Lotz, November 22, 2007; Miller to Lotz, November 23, 2007; Green to Lotz, November 23, 2007). When interviewed by British researcher Jeffrey Green for the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Briggs flatly denied that he was born in the Caribbean (Kernfeld 2002, 304).

4. Allard Möller states: "Briggs enlisted as a military bandsman but when the U.S. began to take part in W.W.I in 1917, he was too young to be sent overseas" (A. M. 1976, 5).

13. This information may have been obtained from Briggs in an interview dated April 28, 1973.

14. "Hugh Fitz Pollard was one of our great percussionists, classically trained and an exponent of vaudeville in the pit orchestra or for accompanying acts, revues, shows, etc. He also excelled in dance music. He accompanied Mistinguett at the Alhambra, Brussels 1922. That was my first continental venture. He returned to Chicago in 1923 due to bad health" (Briggs to Lotz, July 5, 1982).

15. Drummer Paul Delvi, when interviewed by French researcher Bertrand Demeusy, identified him as "a Swiss musician who had a Brazilian Negro wife" (Demeusy 1979).

16. Around July 1923 the Orchestre Pollard's Six, directed by Harry Pollard, recorded two sides for Pathé in France. The latest edition of Brian Rust's Jazz Records (Rust and Shaw 2002, 1274) still lists Arthur Briggs as probable trumpeter; Briggs, however, denied his presence when interviewed by Daniel Guerin and Lotz, and suggested Bobby Jones.

17. Later to be renamed Le Pingouin, Willie Lewis played there in 1932, and still later it became famous as Le Boeuf sur le Toit.

18. Banjoist Al Hughes was registered in Vienna on April 30, 1925, as having arrived from Brussels.

24. The August 15, 1926 issue of the New York Age erroneously advertised that Porter Grainger and Freddie Johnson's musical Lucky Sambo opened at the New 125th Street Theatre in New York, with music provided by "Arthur Briggs and his Gang Orchestra." Briggs was in Vienna at the time, and the pit orchestra in New York was directed by Arthur Gibbs, the composer of Running Wild.

46. Briggs was briefly mentioned in the July 1929 and October 1929 editions of La Revue du Jazz.

47. The violin virtuoso Berndt Buchbinder spoke up for Briggs, "who could give all Germans a lesson" (Der Artist, November 1, 1929).

48. The first advertisement was placed in the October 23, 1929, issue of the Frankfurter Generalanzeiger. On Wednesday, October 27, 1929, a "farewell concert" was announced for Saturday, October 30. The November 1, 1929, issue carried notice of the prolongation of the contract.

50. For a detailed discussion of Sissle's British sojourns, see Rye 1983.

51. Sponsored by the newspaper L'Intransigéant and members of the Paris black entertainment community at the Théâtre Champs Elysées in aid of flood victims ("200 Performers thrill French with music and mimicry at Paris benefit," New York Amsterdam News, April 23, 1930, 10).

52. The Sissle orchestra may have flown into London for a day's visit earlier than that. The November 8, 1930 issue of the Afro-American has a photograph of the band en route to the Paris airport to fly to London "for a special engagement."

53. [Baltimore] Afro-American, December 20, 1930. According to Möller, the orchestra "returned to the U.S.A. where they almost immediately landed a long-term contract with the New York Park Central Hotel" (A. M. 1976, 5). This could not be substantiated.

54. Adriano Mazoletti (2004, 271) claims that Chicago-born Paul "Spade" Jones (piano, violin, arranger), came to Europe with his own orchestra in 1930 and played—but never recorded—with Freddy Johnson and Arthur Briggs. No precise date is suggested. The August 22, 1942 issue of Melody Maker ("Collector's Corner," 4) quotes saxophonist Jimmy Fykes as having traveled to England in 1916, left for India in 1917, worked in South America, North Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and settled in Turkey. According to his own testimony he returned to Europe, where he joined Arthur Briggs, but again no date is given.

55. "In 1931, he [Arthur Strut] Payne was in charge of the Kentucky Singers, who performed at the Monte Carlo Sporting Club accompanied by my orchestra" (Briggs to Lotz, November 22, 1982).

56. Although Hugues Panassié wrote a short piece on Briggs in the July 1934 issue (no. 46) of Jazz Tango, he did not list one single side with Briggs in his Discographie Critique des Meilleurs Disques de Jazz (Panassié 1958).

57. "Sweet Georgia Brown" was not recorded on this occasion; it had already been waxed on July 8, but without Butler.

63. Due to his failing eyesight Briggs found it increasingly difficult to write. He entered an agreement with one of the authors, Lotz, whereby he would tape his memoirs and Lotz would handle translations and publication through Rabbit Press (jointly owned by Jeffrey Green, Ian Pegg, and Lotz). However, his tape recorder broke down and was not repaired. In 1982 Adriano Mazzoletti had acquired the rights for Italian television. Although they did a five-hour taping of Briggs's professional activities, this was presumably never aired. Lotz also proposed to reissue Briggs's complete output in chronological order on four CDs on Bruce Bastin's British-based Harlequin label. Although the transfers were ready for mastering, that deal fell through due to the difficult situation of the independent record business.

64. Briggs' previous twenty-two years of marriage to a Belgian wife ended in an unhappy divorce. Briggs stated that "fortunately we had no offspring" (Briggs to Lotz, January 26, 1979.

65. Briggs apparently had no other close relatives. He mentioned "one of my great nephews [Martin Briggs-Hall] was promoted Captain, West Point graduate in 1975" (Briggs to Lotz, January 4, 1979). On another occasion he referred to "one of my great nephews who is a graduate jazz historian" with whom he spoke during a visit to the States in 1974 (Briggs to Lotz, September 27, 1979).

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